


And Grace Shall Lead Us Home

by PinkPenguinParade



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), BAMF Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Has All the Genders (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley's Love Language is Acts of Service (Good Omens), Cussing, Established Relationship, He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, I don't know whether everyone is going to agree with the BAMF tags but I do, Minor Original Character(s), Multi, POV Crowley (Good Omens), Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Rescue, She/Her Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens), Sickfic, Whump, does this count as a, or at least two of them onscreen, trauma/recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:34:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24360664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkPenguinParade/pseuds/PinkPenguinParade
Summary: Aziraphale was gone. Not gone from the bed, or gone for pastries. Not stepped out for a few, just gone.Crowley closed his eyes, reaching past his flesh through the material world. There was no one in the shop. Humans crowded the street outside, bright sparks in their brief mortal cloaks; he flowed around them, reaching out, searching. No angel.Crowley snapped back into his body already fighting down panic. His angel (myangel, he thought, possessively.Mine.) was competent and strong. He was okay. Clearly, he'd just... popped out somewhere. Somewhere out of this plane. Without saying anything. To somewhere that wanted to kill him....Panic was winning.(Or, when Aziraphale disappears Crowley has to find a way to bring him home and, once he comes home, bring him home again.)(fic is finished, will be posted a chapter a day until I get bored and dump all the rest at once.)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 134
Kudos: 180





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> CW: If gender-flipping bothers you, know up front that Crowley shifts genders in here in a literal physical way. Fic is rated M for themes and a lot of swearing; T might be fine but I'd always rather err on caution. If y'all think it should be T or if there's anything else I need to tag under a content warning, please shout out. Level of violence is... canon-typical, if you extend canon to 'Biblical', which.... covers a crap-ton of violence, really. 
> 
> Thanks eternal go to LastSaskatchewanPirate and LigeiaSaintGermain for beta services and listening to me dither and dealing with random chunks of fiction dropped into text chats without warning. You guys are the BEST and you constantly amaze me and you totally got me through the 'how can I be so busy and tired and yet not actually be doing anything?' portion of this stupid plague.
> 
> I promise our poor broken boys pull through this. :)

Crowley woke with a start, the world knifing into his senses. He panted a few breaths in the quiet darkness of the bookshop flat until he pinned down what it was that had woken him.

Aziraphale was gone. Not gone from the bed, or gone for pastries. Not stepped out for a few. Just gone.

He closed his eyes, reaching past his flesh through the material world. He was unobserved. There was no one in the shop or anywhere else in the building. Humans crowded the street outside, bright sparks in their brief mortal cloaks; he flowed around them, reaching out.

No angel.

Farther--out to the point where he had to either stop or risk losing the connection to his corporation. There, to the south, an echo of angelic energy; a few other directions likewise but less strongly. Variously angelic or infernal, but none of them Aziraphale.

Fuck.

Crowley snapped back into his body already fighting down panic. His angel ( _my_ angel, he thought, possessively. _Mine._ ) was competent and strong. He was okay. There wasn't a trace of Hellfire anywhere. It wasn't like when the bookshop burned, it wasn't. It _wasn't._ Clearly, he'd just... popped out somewhere. Out of this plane. Without saying anything. To somewhere that wanted to... kill him....

Panic was winning.

Crowley forced himself to take a deep breath. They'd become too human, Aziraphale had said once, human enough to need human things, like breathing and light and food and sleep. (Crowley had taken it as a challenge, to convince him how much fun could be had with human things. And oh, the fun they'd had.)

He'd got _used_ to being nearly human. Emotions affected bodies, bodies affected emotions, and most of the time it was fine. Better than fine, even. But sometimes, like when panic was starting to run under his skin and squeeze his lungs, he had to make himself remember that he _wasn't_ human. That he could change things for himself, at least a little.

He'd learned this from Aziraphale, too, if indirectly. A few deep breaths, a slight nudge to a few important neurotransmitters. It wasn't the same as serenity--it was barely in the same room as calm, the angel was so much better at this than him--but it bought him a little distance.

Okay, so Aziraphale wasn't on Earth. At least, not anywhere Crowley could feel him, and he'd been able to find the angel halfway around the globe before. That meant Aziraphale was either in Heaven, or in Hell, or... or he was in Heaven or Hell, that's all there was to it. The third option, well, that was just not to be thought.

(A tiny, traitorous little voice whispered to him, of the third option, of the idea that his angel was gone gone _gone._ He shoved it down, worked to tune it out.)

The inevitable consequence of living with Aziraphale was books, everywhere. The small night stand on his side of the bed was no exception, and he shifted volumes until he dug down to the copy of Shakespeare's comedies that Aziraphale had given him, ages back--old and ornate, beautiful even under unfortunate amounts of dust. Audio renditions of the plays as well as constant productions here in Will's city had made it mostly unecessary for him to pick through favorites with his serpent's eyes, but he kept it still--it made him warm, every time, thinking of the look on his angel's face when he'd let himself get talked into promoting a gloomy bastard of a play. The look when, much later, he'd opened the gift, leather and gilt shining and new.

He opened it carefully, reverently, to a page marked by a single white feather.

Crowley dressed himself with a thought and stalked out of the bookshop, feather in his pocket.

***

They'd gotten complacent, he thought, driving to Mayfair with more than his usual casual disregard for road safety. Too many years had gone by with no sign of Heaven or Hell, and they'd let their guard down.

Heaven was more likely, but Hell would be the easiest to check--he'd built a few back doors into and out of Hell long before he'd ever gotten nervy enough to ask for holy water, because some day he was going to screw up. He'd say the wrong thing or slip up on a lie he'd told or just piss off the wrong demon, and when that happened he wanted some way _out,_ preferably more than one. And the nearest one was under his flat, in the basement of his building.

After the end of the world they'd gone through the bookshop and his building and the Bentley and warded them each to a fare-thee-well, setting up as much protection and alarm as they could manage. The bookshop had been a challenge--hard to shore up the existing wards and still leave it open to be a public shop and the Soho Sanctuary Aziraphale needed it to go on being. His building had been a different challenge, to try to make everything snug and secure while still leaving his emergency gate in place. But they had had time then, finally, and no pressing need to pretend not to know each other anymore. They had planned and schemed and laughed through it all.

The preferred black candles had hit the bin long ago, when he believed he'd never again want to use it from this side. He stopped on the way for a pack of birthday candles instead. Carefully placed and lit each to each in order, they provided all the flame he needed.

His tongue forked briefly in his mouth for the proper intonation, and rather than having to concentrate to bring out his fangs they sprang forward with a thought, trying to arm him for a battle he wasn't sure was coming. He used one to rip the pad of his thumb, let blood and venom drip onto the circle.

Careful sigils flared to life. The center fell away into darkness, and Crowley descended into Hell.

***

Luck, or something like it, was with him. Dust lay thick and damp on the floor in the little-used hallway he'd anchored in. He blinked in the flickering dim of light fixtures he'd jiggered to be unreliable and unpleasant. There was no sign it had been disturbed in weeks.

Crowley took a deep breath and immediately coughed in the murky musty air. His hand slipped into his pocket and wrapped itself carefully around his feather. He made himself breathe shallowly, flicking out his tongue and scenting the air currents of Hell for any hint of his angel. Anchored to the feather as he was, even a molecule of resonance with that power should have stood out among the rest.

Nothing. There was plenty to smell, of course, Hell was always foul with rot. On top of that Hastur was prowling about, out there, angry and confused as usual. Beelzebub had that vexed smell that said someone had just interrupted zir, Dagon the hint of ripe annoyance that said some unlucky demon was going to be redoing their paperwork for the next decade. Legion was a hundred places, doing a hundred unpleasant jobs and being generally pissy about it. But there was no bustle, no excitement, none of the hubbub that would result from any interesting prisoner at all, much less an angelic one. None--he swallowed briefly--none of the celebration that would come from having killed an Adversary.

The pad of his thumb had stopped bleeding. He ripped it again, smeared the blood and venom down the L of the nearest 'Do Not Lick the Walls' sign, and stepped through the portal that appeared.

Back in his basement he made sure everything was well closed behind him, extinguished the birthday candles and gathered them up. Dragged a toe through his activation point, broke the lines, and carefully reset all the wards before he left.

He'd spent millennia lamenting that the rest of Hell had cultivated neither imagination nor finesse. Stuck in the past, the lot of them. 

He'd never been so grateful of it.

***

So, not Hell. Not unless they'd gotten a great deal more clever, anyway, and he'd seen no sign of that.

Heaven, then. Of course it was Heaven, of _course_ it was. There was nobody, nobody like the Righteous to hold a grudge long past sense.

He could try the escalator, naturally, but there were also the service stairs, from before they'd got all shiny and upscale with the way into Heaven. Aziraphale had used the unassuming door all the time for a while because it had been the front door then, and even a few times after, when the angel had wanted to pop Upstairs for something or other without the whole rigamarole of checking in and possibly running into the Archangels.

It still wasn't even in the same postcode as a good idea, of course, but he didn't have a better one. Or even, he thought briefly, another one. Not one single better idea, really. At least the service stairs didn't have a receptionist at the top.

But first... he waved a hand down his body and his clothes shifted to shades of white and cream, moved his hand back up above his head and his hair lightened to blond, glasses shifting to smaller, trendier, blue-tinted specs.

It wasn't what anyone would call a disguise, really. Barely even an overlay. If anyone got close enough to get a good look at him it would all be over. But then if any angels got close enough to smell the miracles he'd just performed it would all be over anyway. All this would do is keep him from standing out against the corridors of heaven.

Crowley summoned a little Hellfire into existence, held just below his fingertips. It had been so long since he had needed any, since he had done anything but hold it at bay for Aziraphale's safety; he was gratified and a little terrified at how easily it still came to him.

The door opened easily. It was probably a metaphor, he thought briefly. Not hard to find the doors to Heaven, just hard to do all that climbing. The sterile, featureless brightness of Heaven washed over him, and he fought down a shudder as he set his feet for the climb. 

The escalators would definitely have been easier, he thought, partway up. If he'd taken the escalator he'd have bloody been there by now. Of course, he would also have been facing an impeccable receptionist who would easily be able to tell that he was Fallen, so he took a breath that burned of holiness and soldiered on.

The light was getting brighter--he wasn't sure how, but he'd swear it was. His tongue flicked out, scent-tasting the air, hoping for any hint of Aziraphale, but all he could taste from here was holiness and a musky overlay of smug. He kept climbing. 

His ears, which had only heard his own steps and breath for what felt like forever, suddenly caught a shrill beeping. The light flickered and reddened-- 

It was all the warning he had before power rushed at him and blew him halfway back to Hell.

***

The pounding in his head made it hard to think. It was probably the result of being tossed around like so much salad, he thought. Or perhaps it might be angels, coming to check on whatever had just knocked him arse-over-teakettle. Not a great thought, but the desire not to get ambushed by the Heavenly Hosts at least got his body moving in the right direction.

Crowley staggered back to the Bentley and headed for the bookshop. He yearned for a safe place to lick his wounds and his flat was closer, but the bookshop was _better._ If any news of Aziraphale came--if he returned or escaped or anyone was looking for him--it would be there. So there is where Crowley would be. 

Even knowing Aziraphale wasn't there, he breathed a sigh of relief when he was finally able to close the shop door behind him. The wards nestled familiarly around him feeling of Aziraphale, of the two of them together. He choked back the desire to sag against the door and never move again, but if he was to be any use at all to Aziraphale then he needed to take care of his body before it stiffened up.

He limped, hissing, to the bathroom in the flat above. Shed his clothing with a gesture, pulled off his sunglasses and tossed them in the bin when he saw the spiderweb of cracks. Half his stash had migrated here from his flat, anyway. Maybe it was time for a change. 

Another wave had the tub full of steaming water. He checked himself in the mirror--bruises bloomed, including a beaut on his forehead that had started to swell and bleed. No wonder he'd gotten some strange looks on the way back. Another bruise at his hip, an angry scrape down his shoulder. Nothing visible on his knee, but something had gone badly wrong there, too; it was grinding in a way it shouldn't even for him, whose legs had never quite worked right anyway. 

He'd have to take care of it. Somewhere out there, he was sure, Aziraphale still needed him. (He was resolutely not thinking about Option 3.)

Crowley lowered himself gingerly into the bath and let the heat calm him until he could find the space to do healing work. Aziraphale had taught him that, too, but--for all he could now do it in a pinch--it was never his best subject and harder still if he was trying to do it on himself. Trying to manipulate anything major on his own corporation was nearly impossible unless he was able to relax for it.

He focused, as Aziraphale had taught him. Reached into his corporation to the damage sites and nudged them along. _The body wants to heal,_ he told himself, closing his eyes and thinking back. _I only need to help it along._

***

_Aziraphale had found her, back in the early days when she'd still been Crawly. She'd been near frantic, trying to take care of a hurt young woman (girl, really, gangling and half-grown but already carrying a woman's weight in the world). She'd been trying, so hard, and still failing. And then the angel had shown up, somehow._

_"Why are you here?" she had said, standing in front of the injured girl, on guard._

_"You called me," the angel said simply._

_"You're not here to--to take her?" Crawly hadn't been sure that was what she was afraid of, not until she said it, but there it was. Angels showed up, at the end of life; the angel had shown up...._

_"I--What? Oh! No, of course not. Not my department at all! I just... I felt your need. Demon or no, I heard you call." The angel shifted to look past her and she allowed it, this time. "Oh, dear. May I?"_

_She couldn't summon words. Stepped to the side, instead, to let him pass, and turned to follow him._

_"What happened?"_

_"We were out gathering, and I tempted her to climb for a beehive." Her breaths felt ragged in her chest. "Thought the worst that would happen would be a few stings, and it would be funny. Best, there would be a honey comb to share. But... she fell. She fell and I can't heal her, I don't know_ how!" _She was almost wailing, but couldn't seem to stop. "It was_ my fault--" __

_"Hush now. Let me take a look." He held a hand over the girl. "Well. Bad enough, I think, but certainly could have been worse."_

_"Can you heal her? She--" Crawly cut off, automatically looking to hide weakness, and remembered Aziraphale confessing to giving his sword away. He might, she thought, not judge her too harshly. "She was kind to me. When she didn't have to be."_

_"Yes. Come here, you might be able to help her."_

_She took a step back. "That's--no, mine all burned up, I can't--!"_

_Aziraphale grabbed her hand firmly and pulled it over the girl. "It won't be the same, no. But I think you can. The body wants to heal," he said. "You just need to help it along. Look down into her, until you can see the damage. Can you see it?"_

_She wanted to; she did. But she could see the angel, and the girl, and the bed and the clothes and the lamp... she stopped and closed her eyes._

_Better. Freed from looking at the material world she could stretch out past her body and see into the girl's, could see where the damage was. The muscle bruising made her wince, but worse than that were the broken bones, a crack in the skull, and some crushing in the soft organs. She hissed. "I can see it. Fix her!"_

_"The long bone in her shin--see the crack?" Aziraphale said patiently._

_"What about her head?"_

_"Heads are fiddly, and she'll take no more damage for waiting a moment. Start here. The body wants to heal. Give it a little power and nudge it along."_

_The angel talked her through most of it, in the end. She was fascinated to see the healing happen, to see the tissues reach for one another, but it was work. By the time they'd done everything but the fracture in the skull she was shaking with fatigue; Aziraphale took a good look at her and sat her down with a cup of water, then took over to heal the skull fractures and delicate nerves himself. He made it look so easy, she thought; but then she could almost,_ almost _remember what it had been like, to have power so geared away from destruction...._

_"She'll sleep a little while longer, but she'll be well."_

_"You could have just done it," Crawly said, yawning, "it would have been faster."_

_The angel smiled like the rising sun. "I could have, yes. But what would you do next time?"_

***

He was shivering, when he finished, in water long gone cold. But the aches had eased and his hip and knee were working as well as they ever did. It was only a moment's thought to warm the bath again.

Aziraphale wasn't in Hell, he thought. And he couldn't get into Heaven to check, not right now. Not as he was. 

But maybe there was a way to find out without risking Heaven's security system again. He pulled himself out of the bath and dressed; grabbed a fresh pair of sunglasses. Checked to make sure the feather was still in his coat pocket. 

Night had fallen outside. He had no idea how long he'd spent climbing Heaven's steps; not much better idea how long he'd spent trying to repair his body after. But he didn't need light, not for this. 

Crowley stalked the streets of Soho, senses open and alert for any sign of interference, ethereal or occult. He talked to passersby and the few shopkeepers who were still about, any people who might have seen something of what happened to nice Mr Fell.

Even so, he almost missed it. A few blocks away, near the angel's favorite bakery, he found fading traces of angelic energy--a flare that tasted of Aziraphale in a panic, almost lost in the scent of angry archangels.

Heaven, then, after all.

Well, _fuck._

***


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sight of smoke in the bookshop grabbed him first, stopped his breath, but despite the amount of smoke there was no visible flame. He cleared he air with a thought and all his attention focused on the center of the room, the circle burned into the carpet, and the still, pale form lying within it. _Aziraphale._
> 
> The angel wasn't moving.

Crowley went back to the bookshop. Aziraphale's feather was going ragged from its time in his pocket; he carefully zipped up the barbules and smoothed the vanes together before letting his _Comedies_ fall open right in the middle of _Much Ado_. "I do love nothing in the world so well as you--is not that strange?" he murmured, reading the well-worn lines, smoothing the last fluff of the feather and tucking it flat. He laid the book down with a sigh, and went to plan his assault on Heaven.

The alarm, trap, whatever it was that he had encountered on his way up meant they were anticipating trouble. Maybe him specifically--he couldn't imagine what other demon they might have been expecting, particularly after abducting their wayward Principality of London. So they were already on their guard. And he... did not know what to do with that information. 

Well, other than really air out his profanity.

He wished briefly, almost hysterically, that he had Aziraphale there. If the angel had been there, he'd have been much better prepared to storm Heaven. If the angel had been there, he'd have had no need.

At least he knew where the occult bookshelves were, hidden away from prying seekers. As much as Aziraphale enjoyed messing with customers, there were some things he simply could not allow to be bought or even handled by humans.

Unfortunately, though, knowing where the occult books were did not make book research one of his stronger attributes. And even great need didn't make the figures on the page lie quietly for his serpentine eyes, particularly after hours of unproductive reading.

He was deep into a tome that had flirted heavily with being helpful (without actually putting out) when three things happened at once. The wards shrieked of an intrusion and quieted, and the smoke alarms all started screaming. Those were almost forgotten next to the third thing, though. He could feel Aziraphale again, that warm flame he'd come to orient to--close by, but confused and dulled. 

Crowley leapt up without a thought and raced downstairs. The sight of smoke in the bookshop grabbed him first, stopped his breath, but despite the amount of smoke there was no visible flame. He cleared he air with a thought and all his attention focused on the center of the room, the circle burned into the carpet, and the still, pale form lying within it. _Aziraphale._

The angel wasn't moving. Wasn't moving, and his presence was strangely muted. But it was him. He was here.

He _wasn't moving._

Crowley reached out to him, touched his shoulder and then patted his cheek.

No response. The skin under his hand was burning up, though, and now he was close enough he could see that the angel wasn't actually motionless--his whole body was shaking, muscles tensed and clenched. 

That... could not be good.

Crowley snuffed the bits of carpet that were still gently smoking, half-melted the smoke alarms with a silencing glare. "I'm trying to think, here, angel, but thinking is not my best skill," he muttered, stretching past himself to get a look at the angel's corporation.

Fever, yes. He knew that already. Nerve impulses were haywire, firing randomly and rapidly, but he couldn't see any reason _why._ No knocks on the head that he could find, no major damage of any sort. Cuts on the hands, already healing; some bruising on his wrists and arms that Crowley was able to take care of on the spot.

Aziraphale's body was fighting itself, but he couldn't find anything _wrong_ with it, which meant.... 

Which meant maybe Aziraphale's body wasn't the problem.

Crowley took a breath and stepped _sideways,_ into the space past matter. It had been a long time, too long. He had to push, and he held his attention mostly averted (he'd learned that lesson long ago. Angels didn't start with "be not afraid" for no reason, and the last time he'd caught an unprepared glimpse of Aziraphale out of the flesh he'd had a migraine for the rest of the day).

He was not met with the expected blinding radiance. He could see the sketch of matter, the souls of people in the street outside brighter and stronger from here. The last glowing traces of the circle that had brought Aziraphale home, drawn in... _Blood? He had to draw the circle in blood?_ He could even see pieces of the old communication circle laid directly underneath, bared by the rug that had blasted itself apart trying to connect them.

He could barely see his angel. Aziraphale should have been luminous, tucked into the mortal bounds of his corporation like dough on the rise--always leaking past it, filling more space than he took up and being bigger than he was. Instead now he was small and dulled, barely even shining. Pulled in on himself, wrapped and tucked and no bigger than an apple, overlapping his humanish heart.

Crowley thought he'd been scared, before, not knowing where his angel was. Now, though.... He could help Aziraphale's body, easily. (He'd learned so much over the years.) But this... this was so far beyond anything he'd ever dealt with for humans, or even trying to tend the angel or himself. Something was wrong, badly wrong, and he didn't know what it was. Didn't even know where to start.

Celestial beings didn't have hearts to beat out of control. He shouldn't be able to panic, not here, but he could feel his corporation making a spirited go of it. He twisted back in and made himself breathe.

_Okay,_ he thought. _What_ can _I do?_ He reached out to calm Aziraphale's corporation, slowing the neural spasms, pulling down the fever. Aziraphale's body relaxed into something Crowley could almost call sleep, if he hadn't seen that tight knot the angel had curled himself into. If he weren't painfully aware of how much of Aziraphale's personality came through even on the occasions when he did sleep, and how much he wasn't _there_ just now.

If he only knew what he was supposed to be doing.

_Get him into bed,_ said a voice in the back of his head and he didn't question. It was useful, it was better for his angel. It was something he could do and he was dying for something that he could _do,_ that didn't leave him just gobsmacked by his own powerlessness.

Wrangling an unconscious angel upstairs was far harder and less graceful than he'd hoped it would be, but in the end he had Aziraphale laid out on the bed, looking at least a little more comfortable than when he'd been folded into his circle.

Crowley sat beside him and took his hand, rubbed off smudges of carpet soot from his face. "Don't suppose you'd like to come back now, angel?" he found himself saying. "I promise I won't even be mad."

There was, as he had rather expected, no response. He stayed for a few minutes more anyway. And when he stood up, determined to get back to his research, he pressed his lips to the warm forehead. 

The book he'd been trying to make sense of when Aziraphale had returned was lying on the floor where he'd let it fall, spine bent, pages creased. He hissed in sympathy and righted it as soon as possible, wondering at the same time whether waving the damage over the still form on the bed would shock the angel awake.

Probably not, he decided, and straightened out the pages with a tiny miracle.

There was a... change, from the bed. Nothing he could see or hear, but something _shifted,_ something was different. The angel lay in bed exactly as he had been left, and didn't respond when Crowley went over and shook him gently.

Probably he was imagining it, Crowley thought. But he twisted sideways again, into that place past matter, in case there was something to see. It was easier this time, with practice, reminding him that the world of matter wasn't all there was.

Still nothing different that he could sense--Aziraphale was still tamped frighteningly in on himself, small and knotted. Residing in his corporation, but not as anchored to it as he should be.

Bless it, _something_ had changed over here when he had fixed the book. He knew it. He thought it, at least; he didn't think he'd completely cracked up yet. Maybe... maybe it was the sense of a miracle? Maybe he just had to prod Aziraphale, connect to let him know that he was home and safe?

**This is probably a terrible idea,** said Crowley. He reached out with his infernal self, down into Aziraphale's body to give a nudge to the coiled knot of him.

Aziraphale knocked him clean off his feet and into the wall. 

Crowley slid down the wall to the floor, blinking and shaking his head as the world faded in and out for a moment. Back in his body with bruises to prove it. Yep, definitely a terrible idea.

"Bit of an overreaction there, love," he croaked, rubbing his chest. He'd never actually been hit by a lorry, but he understood why people might use the comparison.

Aziraphale still wasn't moving.

He stepped over to the bed to take a look. His dapper angel was too pale, eyes closed, face slack. A few taps on the cheek provoked no response. A carefully pulled-back eyelid showed pinprick pupils almost entirely lost in blue.

Alright. That was... more information he couldn't use, actually. A few minutes with his mobile confirmed, unsurprisingly, that Google didn't have any better suggestions than he did. 

He sat on the bed again, wincing when it pulled at new bruises. "Aziraphale," he said finally. "I don't know if you can hear me in there." Fingers moving with deft care, he began to unbutton the angel's coat and waistcoat. "I won't try to nudge you again, okay? I get it, that was bad. I won't do it again." He was able, with some effort, to get them off intact, and he hung them up in the wardrobe. A discreet miracle removed a couple small bloodstains from the ragged cuffs and balding velvet, and he was hit again with that sense that something had changed, had shifted. "You're making it so hard not to check on you right now, though," he went on.

Crowley stared at the still figure on the bed for long enough that he had to shake himself out of it. Fatigue and aches were creeping in at the edges, his corporation demanding his attention after injury and panic and more hours of reading-induced eyestrain than he had bothered to keep track of. "I know you don't like too many miracles near your good clothes, but it's this or sleeping in fifty layers, angel. I'm knackered and sore and I need to heal up." 

This time he was watching closely, if only with his physical eyes, when he miracled the rest of Aziraphale's clothes into the closet and put the angel into soft pajamas. There it was again, that sense of shifting, and he saw the even in-and-out of quiet breathing stutter, just for a second. 

Another minute's watching revealed a complete absence of anything interesting. Crowley sighed and stripped out of his own clothes like shedding a skin, slipped into the tee and soft trousers he slept in. He pulled the coverlet over his sleeping angel and climbed in on his own side, laying back and taking conscious, slow breaths into his body. He needed to start the healing--bruising didn't require too much attention once the body was given its directives, but it was still harder for him to fix on himself than on someone else. 

He had just told his body to get on with it and was listening to Aziraphale's breathing beside him when he drifted off into a restless sleep.

*** 

He woke, and wasn't sure what woke him--it certainly wasn't the state of being rested, he thought, trying to wrestle his mind on track. The flat was dark and quiet, he was wrapped up around his angel warm and... very warm, actually.

The past days flooded back as Aziraphale's body trembled.

"Ah, shit," Crowley said, instantly awake. He waved the lights on and knelt up on the bed, checking for any other changes. The angel was much as he had been the night before, down to the resurgent fever and nerves firing.

_Okay. Okay. I can do this. Okay._ He could get the corporation under control, even if he couldn't do anything else. He brought the fever down, soothed the nerves until his angel was in something almost like sleep again. And then he slumped back onto the bed, absently rubbing at his sternum.

He looked down. The rest of the bruising had healed, but there was still soreness there he couldn't quite place. Maybe it was different, being slugged from another dimension? Aziraphale probably could have told him. He pulled up his T-shirt to take a look, and didn't see anything particular to cause the ache, but it felt... warm. Oddly familiar.

"Angel. Sweetheart. I've got to take a look at you again. I won't touch, I swear I won't touch, but I'm, I'm working blind here, angel." He settled on the bed, eyes closed for that sideways slip. Maybe if he got slugged again he would at least be somewhere soft.

**Oh... _shit_ ,** he said again, in that space beyond space.

Aziraphale was still tightly knotted down in his corporation--maybe a bit less cramped than yesterday, just a touch less stoppered down. Crowley wasn't sure whether that counted as progress or not. But what he _was_ sure of is that the tendril reaching from Aziraphale to clamp itself under his breastbone was probably not a good thing.

He tried his best to get a good look at it, from every angle he could manage. None of them were particularly helpful. All of them showed him exactly the same thing: part of Aziraphale was now solidly attached to him.

And he had no real idea of where to go from here. Well, one idea. It was a bad idea. It was, he admitted freely to himself in a terrified undercurrent, a _terrible_ idea. But he didn't have even one single better one. Not a whisper of a roadmap to a better one. 

_And hell,_ he thought, almost laughing. _If I was only ever going to have good ideas, I probably never would have Fallen._

**Angel? I don't know if you can hear me. I know I said I wouldn't, but I'm going to try to touch you again. If you're in there, let me know?**

He started to stretch out and then stopped for another moment, adding a heartfelt, **And please don't smite me?**

Crowley reached out against all his better judgment, and bumped gently against that tight knotted ball.

He didn't get slammed into a wall this time. Count that with the good news.

The knot that was Aziraphale relaxed slightly. Also good news.

Crowley flinched as the uncoiling angel shone brighter, light spilling from the cracks in flaming shades of _wrong--_ light he hadn't seen since the War, since angels fighting and wounding and killing one another. 

Since angels hurting, and Falling. 

That was... that was not good news. Very, very not good.

The bit that was attached to him was, he noted with some relief, still definitely angelic. He wasn't sure how long he'd Fallen, before the sudden, molten stop at the end, but this didn't seem to be that. _Please, not that._

Crowley collapsed back into his body and immediately folded around the phantom throb in his chest, kneading at his breastbone with restless knuckles. "I don't know what to do," he whispered, "I don't know what to do I don't know what to do... Angel, what do I do? How do I help you? What do I _do_?"

There was no answer. He hadn't expected one.

Curled in their bed, one hand on his chest and the other on his angel, Crowley sobbed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Why can't you lot get it _through your heads._ Leave us alone."
> 
> "I was hoping to talk to Aziraphale," the angel said. "There are rumors and rumors, and I'd like to hear from him direct."
> 
> "Not going to happen," said Crowley. "Spill it or leave."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a long one here, y'all, and where it starts to get a lot heavier.

He slowly built up a rhythm, over the next two days. Dig through Aziraphale's books, trying to find anything approaching useful information. Curse inventively when text after tome after volume comes up empty. Check on Aziraphale's corporation, bringing down fever as necessary. Twist sideways to take a look at Aziraphale's Self--the angry flare of injury-light revealed by the slowly uncurling knot of him.

Pace, relentlessly, always kneading at the throb in his chest, telling himself that the visible (if glacial) relaxation of that cramped ball meant Aziraphale was healing. That his angel was coming back to him.

And then tell himself that again.

***

It was late, he thought--dark outside, at least--and his eyes were bleary with too much text and not enough sleep. They might have been bleary from wine, except it was only his first glass. (Maybe second. He should never have let himself get so dependent on sleep.)

Either way he was shocked to awake-and-sober by the abrupt screaming of the wards, a split second before someone pounded on the door downstairs and suddenly he had no attention to spare. 

The ache under his breastbone spiked like it had figured out what teeth were for, angelic energy clamping on hard. Through it he could feel Aziraphale expand, almost explode, racing towards the door downstairs. Power poured around him, through him--anger, _Wrath_ like he'd not seen in centuries. Millennia. Bright and angelic and lion-headed and--

\--And headed straight out towards the streets of Soho.

Crowley moved on instinct, his material hands striking out in a way that never should have worked--grabbing hold and pulling back, shunting that blazing energy into himself and redirecting it. Letting it slice through him rather than out onto a street full of Aziraphale's charges.

He was almost, _almost_ in time. The wards at the door erupted, and--

_Golden light, bleeding, slicing, blinding, angelic and awesome Grace that Aziraphale had so carefully buried, had covered up, had wrapped in softness and comfort and humor and humanity and understanding  
cracked open, laid bare  
prowling  
angry  
hurting  
**ANGRY--**_

Crowley lay on the floor, face smashed into the ancient carpet, breathing dust that smelled of books and feathers and Aziraphale. He felt unnervingly like a crime scene, like he'd been skewered and peeled out of his skin and stuffed back in back-to-front. But he was here, alive and not discorporated despite the ringing in his ears telling him otherwise. 

Levering himself off the floor took three tries, though, and he left stains in the carpet from his bleeding hands. He ignored it for a moment, heading first to check on Aziraphale. The angel hadn't moved, at least physically; his corporation was breathing slowly, eyes closed. 

"What... in the _fuck_... was that, angel?"

There was, unsurprisingly, no answer. 

Crowley staggered to the bathroom and washed his hands, wrapping towels around the cuts. The ringing in his ears finally resolved to the residual cry of the wards downstairs, shrill, off-balance, and warped, and he headed down to the shop to have a look. 

The open door gaped onto the rainy street-lit pavement outside. Two figures were silhouetted against it, unmoving.

Crowley closed the door with a thought and waved the lights on. And stopped, staring, at the crystalline figures before him--one of them he didn't know, but he rather thought the other one was Uriel. 

...Or had been Uriel, at least. Before being turned to salt. 

That was... very not good. He'd never known Aziraphale to go Old Testament, even _during_ the Old Testament. But then he'd barely recognized Aziraphale at all in that power roaring through his hands.

He should, he thought, he _should_ be glad he was standing here, glad he'd made it through without a smiting. And he was, somewhere, under the parts of him that were screaming.

He wondered distantly if he'd been too slow after all-- if any of Aziraphale's Soho people had been caught in the surge, were maybe melting in the rain even now--and realized with dawning horror that he would have to _go and check,_ because Aziraphale would never forgive himself if he'd hurt his charges.

Crowley touched the Uriel-statue's arm, lightly, watching some of the crystals break free and flow to the floor; and then the other one. There was a feel to them, a resonance, that he thought he'd be able to follow if there were any more.

_Please don't let there be any more._

First things first, though; his hands ached sharply. The calm he needed to do a proper job of it wasn't even on the horizon, but he managed to stop the bleeding and called it a win.

He was kneading at his chest again by the time he made it to the broken door, to see the cracks and splinters where it had been blown open, the mess of the remaining wards. They'd worked hard on those wards, him and Aziraphale together, but neither of them had foreseen the need to build them to withstand angry angels from both sides. 

He'd rebuild what he could later, but right now he had a task. Holding onto that fragile thread of resonance, Crowley stepped out into the night.

It was late enough that even here there weren't many people about. Those who were didn't care about him as he prowled the streets around the shop, alert for that energy. No people, he saw with relief; no sad melting piles of salt in the rain.

He was almost ready to go back in when he caught a faint trace and followed it to the alley around back. There, in a small niche in the crumbling brickwork, he found the crystalline remains of two small plump rats.

"Sorry, guys," he said quietly, reaching out a careful finger and running it softly along a back. It was wet, the moisture from the rain already being sucked up by the salt.

All in all, he felt worse about that than he did about Uriel and whoever the other one was. But at least he wouldn't have to hold Aziraphale through the knowledge that he'd killed the people he was supposed to be protecting.

Once inside he ran his hands down the door, fixing the damage he could and restoring the lock. The wards were a lost cause; he rebuilt what he could and reinforced it with as much will as he was able summon up, but they'd have to do it again properly once Aziraphale woke up. 

_If Aziraphale woke up. If he was still Aziraphale._

No. No, no no, he wasn't thinking that way. Positivity was a tough habit to get into when you were a demon, but he'd worked on it, dammit. Letting himself lose hope now would be a recipe for a depression nap, which wouldn't help Aziraphale at all and might lead to oblivion for both of them if there were more angelic attacks. And frankly, he wasn't about to give them the satisfaction. Sanctimonious holier-than-thou bastards.

His chest was throbbing. He skirted wide around the new statuary and went upstairs to check on his angel.

Stepping away from the material was getting to be old hat again. Living on Earth for so long had settled him into Earthly habits, but they'd done it all the time when they first had bodies, comparing the senses of their corporations to those of their celestial selves. It came back, when he needed it. 

Aziraphale was... roiling. He had expanded, unknotted until he was closer to the size of his corporation, but twisting, writhing, curling around that wounded injury-light in a way that hid and revealed and never quite let Crowley see the shape or extent of it. He could see the scar, the dissonance, but he couldn't see what had been _done._

**I don't know how to heal you, angel.**

***

Cleaning up Uriel and the other one made a mess. Salt got into the cuts on Crowley's hand and sat there, stinging. 

There was probably a metaphor in that, he thought. But he was much too tired to care.

***

There were two more incursions over the next day--angels testing, probing at the wards. Neither poured in as much power as Uriel had; neither brute-forced their way through. Aziraphale reacted badly to each, pouring out wrath and pain with an almost mindless ferocity. 

Crowley endured. Stubbornly dug in his heels, grabbed that power and redirected it away from the innocent people of Soho. There was just so _much_ of it, he thought raggedly, panting on his knees after the second attack--far more than he could absorb, more than he could ground and not nearly enough places to dump it. 

Soho's rat population had taken a serious hit.

Some time after that, a much more human knocking on the door pulled his attention away from... staring at the middle distance, he realized. He'd been trying to read, again, looking for anything useful in these human-penned fantasies that were _getting him nowhere--_

The knocking came again, yanking him out of his well-worn frustrations. He sighed and closed the book. Took a look at Aziraphale, who was quiescent, and fumbled a pair of sunglasses onto his face before going to the door.

Mrs. Parcival was, it had to be said, Crowley's favorite of the neighbors of AZ Fell & Co. So while it was with some trepidation that he answered the door, he wasn't actually mad.

"Oh, good," she said. "Is Mr. Fell in?"

"Sleeping upstairs, Mrs. Parcival," Crowley said. "I'm afraid now's not a good time--"

"Only we've all been a bit worried," she said, ignoring his objections. "Strange people about at all hours, that dreadful pounding the other night. And no one's seen hide nor hair of him."

"He hasn't been feeling well. You know how it is."

"And then this nice young woman asked me if I would bring this over," she said. She held up a creamy white envelope. "I must say, she was a bit short, though."

Crowley recognized that particular shade of heavy paper--of course he did, over thousands of years around his angel he'd inevitably been present for a few communiques from Heaven. He looked at it warily without taking it. "And who was it gave you this?" he asked.

"That young lady over there in the cafe," Mrs. Parcival said with a wave. "She was very insistent. Didn't even want to look at the things in the shop, and we're having a sale on!"

He followed the gesture to the cafe across the street, and saw a dark-skinned young woman in light clothing that clearly came from Heaven's tailor. She caught his eye and raised her teacup in salute, then continued drinking.

"No," he said absently. "She wouldn't have. Thank you very much, Mrs. Parcival," he said. And then he took the envelope from her hand and, without opening it or breaking eye contact with the angel across the street, tore it in half.

"Well, I didn't think she was _that_ brusque," Mrs. Parcival said. "But I'm sure you know best for your family. You know if you boys ever need anything from the shop I'm always open to you, and I wouldn't dream of charging you retail."

There were reasons that Mrs. Parcival was his favorite neighbor. He tore his gaze from the angel across the way. "I know you wouldn't, luv. And you know we'd never buy from anyone else."

"Of course, dear. I'm so sorry to hear Mr. Fell's taken poorly. Should I pop round with some soup later?"

"Not just yet, I think. But when he starts to get better, I'm sure it will be just the thing." He smiled for her and it felt strained. But then, he thought, he felt strained all over just now. "Best get on back to your shop, though. I've got an eye on her."

"You take care of him, dear. And yourself, too--get some rest, you look dreadful worn." She patted his hand and turned back to her shop. 

Crowley looked back at the cafe, at the angel sitting calmly there, then dropped the torn envelope on the step and closed the door. He had his own angel to check on and as long as this one kept her distance he would concentrate on Aziraphale.

***

Aziraphale's temperature was up again. Crowley took care of him. It hadn't spiked as high, recently; it was longer intervals between needing tending. It had been hours since his nerve impulses had last gone haywire, and hours before that, as well.

Good news for his angel's corporation, sure, but not much change for his angel. Still roiling, twisting. Still overlaid on his corporation but incongruent with it. Still alternating between curling around that injury-light and flaring it.

The books still weren't doing him much good, either. He began to wonder if any of them had been written by anyone who knew what they were doing. And he'd thought that Aziraphale had had notebooks of his own around, somewhere, but if they existed they were hidden well enough to defeat him.

And so he was caught, as always, between sleep and relentless pacing. As much as he craved sleep, he was afraid of being out of touch, out of reach, or too slow the next time the angels attacked.

And the longer the time went by without the Angels attacking, the more sleep seemed like a good idea. His vigilance right now was at least partly built on the knowledge of the angel at the cafe. Sitting. Waiting.

Waiting and--and he looked out the window again to be sure--watching the shop carefully, toasting him with her teacup whenever she noticed him looking.

He and Aziraphale had spent centuries working together--so much time, so much work they'd put into supporting each other. He wasn't used to dealing with things like this all alone anymore. 

Overall, he hadn't felt this ragged since the fourteenth fucking century.

***

She was still there. Crowley had lost all track of exactly how long it had been, but when he peered out the window she was still there.

And it was, abruptly, All Too Much.

He checked on Aziraphale (still sleeping) and then stalked out of the shop and, heedless of traffic, over to the cafe. "What. Are. You. Playing. At?"

"Elluviel," she said. "I did send a letter."

"Why can't you lot get it _through your heads._ Leave us alone. Not now!" He added in a snarl to the young woman who had started to come towards him with a notepad and a may-I-take-your-order expression.

Her eyes widened. "Of course, Mr. Crowley!" she said, and backed off.

"I was hoping to talk to Aziraphale," the angel said. "There are rumors and rumors, and I'd like to hear from him direct."

"Not going to happen," said Crowley. "Spill it or leave. Or just leave, and tell that lot of wankers you work with to stay the fuck away."

She sipped her tea. "Nobody's seen Gabriel in almost a week."

"Best news. Maybe he decided to go spelunking in his ass until he finds his head. Throw a party. Better yet, go away somewhere else, and throw a party."

She regarded him for a moment, clearly trying for 'imperturbable' and _almost_ making it. He was starting to be able to read her, to see the edges of agitation under her cool facade--she wanted something, wanted it very badly, and was a little afraid to get it.

He did not want to open himself up to her enough to read what it was.

"She called you Crowley."

"It's my name."

"You're the one, aren't you? The one he stood with at the end of the world?" she said finally. "The one who stopped everything with him?"

Oh fuck's sake, not this again. "Adam stopped it. The humans stopped it. We just happened to be in the neighborhood," he said. "Not that anyone cares how it actually went down."

"Still, though. It was you." She started to take another sip, and couldn't completely keep the teacup steady. "Thank you."

Not even a little bit what he'd been expecting. "What with the what did you just say?"

"We didn't all want the war. Those of us on the ground, I mean, none of us have been here as long as he has, but some of us _like_ Earth." She set her cup down, barely rattling it against the saucer. "Being told to pivot from protecting and helping them to just watching them all die and _rejoicing_ about it.... It didn't sit well. But none of us had any idea what to do about it, and he--and you--did."

"Look, an--what did you say your name was? 'Cause I'm not calling you 'angel', although 'nosy bint who won't leave us alone' is in the running."

"Elluviel. I've been stationed in France, off and on."

"Right. Elluviel. Appreciate you not trying to actually attack the shop right now. Probably you being out here is why nobody else has tried to attack the shop since you showed up. Appreciate that, too. More than you know. Soho is running out of rats, and I really like rats."

"What does--"

"But why are you _here?"_ he went on, as if she hadn't spoken. "What is it that you want, out of this little exchange? And understand, right now, that Aziraphale is not coming out of the shop and nobody, but nobody, is going in. Got it?"

"Nobody has seen Gabriel," she said again.

"I don't give a rat's knackers about Gabriel. As long as he stays away from here, Gabriel can rot."

"Nobody has seen Sandalphon either," she said. "Michael's not taking any calls. And the rumor mill is running overtime saying that Uriel was discorporated _by Aziraphale."_

"Wow." He blinked behind his sunglasses and dropped into the chair across from her. "That part is... okay, that part is true. Also another angel I didn't recognize and I take it back, I definitely need coffee for this." He raised a hand to catch the attention of the staff, using that moment to try to think. "Oi, Beth. Black as the pit and triple-strong, cheers." Elluviel was watching him when he turned back. "I don't suppose the rumor mill had anything to say about her blasting the doors off of the book shop?"

"Oddly," she said dryly, "that was not part of it, no. Although it does rather sound like Uriel, at least when something has the archangels in a mood." She dropped her head into her hands with a sigh. "Please can I just talk to Aziraphale? I'm really glad you were there for the whole end-of-the-world thing, but you're a demon and your word's just... not going to mean nearly as much."

"Nobody goes in," he said again, automatically. "I'm out of rats, and he loves these people."

"What do you mean, you're out of rats?" She raised her head, annoyance making her voice go high. "And what is wrong with your chest?"

Crowley looked down to find that he was yet again rubbing at his sternum. "Look," he said. "I'm too old and too tired for this shit and you're not going to believe me anyway because demon. Okay? So... look. Take a step sideways and _look."_

She blinked, surprise showing on those two perfect features. "You want me to... here? Really?" 

"You--" he broke off as Beth arrived with his coffee; smiled at her and took a gulp without waiting for it to cool down. The heat and familiar bitterness of it set his neurons fizzing. "You should be able to see him from here. Whatever you do, you don't touch him, you don't try to reach inside the bookshop. I won't like it if you do. You'll like it even less, trust me."

"If there's even a hint that he needs me--" 

"Just look. You can threaten me after." He wasn't sure why he was doing this, what he hoped to gain from it. Maybe this angel was a liar, and planning to bring down the wrath of Heaven on them both, having lured him out, but... he didn't think so, really. He'd never met an angel that was a really good liar (no good liars in the demons, either, they tended not to bother. Humanity had all that stitched up nicely). And if she did care, if she _was_ after the truth, well, he wanted her to have it. 

Oh, did he want someone from Heaven to actually give a fuck about the truth.

Crowley slipped sideways along with her, carefully averting his attention. She was as bright and relentless as he'd expected, and he didn't look straight at her, but he wasn't going to let her reach toward Aziraphale without at least keeping watch. From here, to him at least, the contrast was stark; her brilliant angelic boldness to the still-muted turbulence of his angel upstairs, flaring in colors he had no name for but 'hurt'.

Her light flickered, concern/worry/alarm and she started to extend toward the shop.

 **No.** He reached out in front of her. **You can't go in.**

She turned to regard him, her light flickering faster as alarm built up. **What are you? What happened to you? What is _that?_** and she reached for the line that ran to him, clamped to his self.

He flinched away before she could touch him and twisted back into his body, right into the teeth of pressure behind his eyes. "Ow," he said quietly, watching her face animate as she resumed her corporation. 

"What in the hell happened to him?" Her eyes were wide. "What in the hell happened to _you?"_

"Not Hell." That at least he was sure of. "He vanished, a few days back. Just poof, gone, from a street that stank of archangels and fear. But he came back..." Crowley shrugged, gesturing to the upstairs flat. 

"Like that," Elluviel finished. 

"It was worse, when he first came back." His voice sounded hollow even to his own ears, and he took some more coffee. "I think. I think this is progress. I hope it is. 'Cause when he first came back he was so tightly knotted down I could barely feel him."

"What have you been doing?"

"Bring down the fever, calm the nerves. Do it again. Do it again. Do it _again._ Hope he wakes up." He shrugged. "Try to hold on and spare his neighbors, when angels attack and he lashes out. Were you there, for Sodom and Gomorrah?"

She blinked, then looked like someone following a line of thought and not liking where it went. "No, thank the Almighty," she said. "Not for that."

"Uriel," he said flatly, "and whoever came with her, are currently bags of salt in the bookshop bins. He's lashed out with every angel that's tried to get into the shop. So far I've managed to keep it away from people."

"...But you're out of rats," she said slowly. "How--He's attached to you. He's written all through you. That shouldn't be possible. You... you shouldn't be possible."

Crowley rubbed at his breastbone, at the sharp ache there. "I... touched him. He was knotted down so tight, and I thought maybe he just needed a nudge, to let him know it was safe. I don't..." he lost it for a moment, composure cracking. "I couldn't see anything, he was curled too tightly, and I, I don't know what they did to him, and I can't fix it. There's nothing wrong with his body except that he's barely in it! They did something to him, something so awful that he drew a circle in his own blood to get home, and I can't help him."

"This," she waved generally at his chest, "should have destroyed one of you. Do you even know what you look like right now?"

He gulped back some more of his coffee, which was somewhat surprised to find itself turning into a respectable whiskey partway through. "A very, very tired demon, I figure." The ache at his temples dulled somewhat; the ache at his breast didn't.

"You're a motley patchwork of demonic and angelic energy. I don't know how you haven't blown apart by now."

That... might explain a few things about how he felt, actually. Not that it mattered. "There's no one else," he said. "End of the world came, everybody took sides. I'm on his side, me. He's fussy and annoying, he drives me absolutely nuts, and I, I just, I _miss him..."_

He wasn't going to blub into his coffee-turned-whiskey in front of an unfamiliar angel. He was not. He was going to stand up and get a refill, and when he got back to the table he would be composed.

She was tactful enough not to mention it, which he appreciated, although she did regard him appraisingly as he set down a refill for her tea. "I'm not--" she started, and tripped over it. "I can't get close enough to him to be sure, all right? I might be able to tell more if I could get close. But it looks like..." she trailed off, obviously contemplating something that disturbed her.

"It looks like what?" he said quietly when she didn't finish.

"I really want to be wrong about this," she said. "But I think someone tried to make him Fall."

The word took on too many echoes in his head, too many things he hadn't let himself think after that first fear. _They tried to make him Fall._ White feathers flared into flame and soot behind his eyes, blue eyes darkened and his lungs weren't working, he couldn't breathe, _Bastards they tried to make him Fall Fall Falling Falling FALLING--_

"Crowley!" someone shouted--there was a warm hand on his and it burned, his chest throbbed, the ache spiking into cramped agony. "Crowley, stop, _stop!"_ Heavenly energy close by, too close, _too close protect defend attack too close too close--_

Power built, pulsed down the tether that joined them and he barely realized in time--pushed back with all his frantic self, holding on to keep it away from the humans _no no not here not them save them protect them NOT A THREAT--_

He was panting, kneeling half out of his chair at a calm cafe table, clutching his chest and feeling like he'd just run a marathon.

Elluviel watched him with wide dark eyes. "That was--" she said.

"Enjoy the show, did you?" he grated, when nothing more was forthcoming. He tried to push himself back into his chair. Managed it on the third go.

"Uriel?" her voice was small.

"Smashed the wards, broke into the store." His coffee was cold and tasted of brine. That was entirely too close. "Why'd you think I told you you couldn't go in?"

"How are you holding that much power? It's too much."

"...'ll be fine," he said, in the face of all evidence to the contrary. His chest burned, throbbed in time with his head, and he didn't know how to make it stop. "Soon as he wakes up, I'll let some of it out where it's safe. Safer. Not here."

"You can't--it's going to burn you up!"

"I don't have an angel doctor, okay? You're the only other one I've met who might even be worth the time of day. Heaven won't help, Heaven _caused_ this, and Hell wouldn't help even if I asked. Which I won't. It's me. I'll manage."

She watched him for a long, annoying moment. 

"Is thinking really loudly just something they teach you in angel school?"

"What," she said, carefully, "would have to happen for you to be able to let go of some of that power?"

"I told you. When he wakes up." Blessed _fuck_ but his chest hurt, he didn't have enough rats here and he couldn't afford to panic again and tip Aziraphale over--

"I'll keep watch," she said, and he was shocked out of his thoughts by it.

"You what?"

"I'll keep watch. Whatever's going on... I don't think witnesses are part of the plan. I don't think--I hope, at least, no-one else will attack if I'm here watching. So you can do... whatever it is you need to do."

"I need to cause trouble, is what I need to do. You're an angel, aren't you supposed to be thwarting me? Why would you do th--why would you even _think_ this?"

"Aziraphale was... kind to me. He didn't have to be, he didn't have to take the time to show me everything, to help me find the best ways to work with people, to help me stop just seeing them as, as game counters. He answered my questions like they mattered. And you," she went on, with a wry look in his direction, "could have been cruel. I could feel that power, don't think I couldn't. You could have saved yourself the pain and let this whole block go."

"I couldn't. Really I couldn't."

"But most demons would," she said.

"Dead people aren't any fun," he said, hitching his shoulder in a half a shrug. "And... Aziraphale wouldn't like it."

"That's the other thing. He loves you. And you love him and _don't_ even try to argue," she waved off the beginning of his objection, "you're wrapped in a cloud of it. If he was awake right now, if he was okay, I could probably see it from space." She picked up her spoon and stirred her tea, considering him. "I don't make a habit of trusting demons, obviously. But... I do trust Aziraphale. And he trusts you. And _chere,_ you are half a step from unraveling and going off like a bomb in the middle of Soho."

He couldn't see anything in her but honesty and earnestness. He let himself open up to her, a little, even though it made his head pound all over again; let himself take a taste of her wants. What she wanted more than anything else was... not to disappoint Aziraphale. That was less of a surprise than it might have been, actually; he didn't want to disappoint Aziraphale either. And he didn't want to go--didn't want to walk away from his angel, in this state, didn't want to leave him alone.

At the same time, though, and as much as he didn't want to admit it, she wasn't wrong. The pain in his temples was rapidly turning stabby. He could feel the seams of him coming apart, the joins loosening and clanking together. He wasn't meant to handle angelic power at all, much less all he was holding on to. He was leaking it, bleeding it onto the floor and out into the street and any more would be more than he could survive. 

"Elluviel. France, right?"

"Off and on for the last thousand years."

"He never talked about angels much, apart from his bosses. But I want to say he talked about you, once or twice. Angel in France, doing a good job there. Popping in every hundred years or so for a chat. He was proud of you."

There was a faint smile on her face, clearly pleased. "About that often, yeah. He's always so helpful."

Crowley stood. "You're right," he said, then made a face. "Eugh, those words taste awful. But you're still right. I don't think I can hold this much longer." He glared at his coffee until it heated for him, then drank it down, making another face at the salt taste of it. "Although he did wonder what you were doing with the Revolution."

"Oh, I like that! I got caught in a shipwreck and discorporated--turned my back for _five minutes_ while I went through the paperwork and they started chopping off everyone's head!"

That prim tone of aggrieved outrage was almost familiar enough to make him smile, if it wasn't also sharp enough to cut into him. "Okay, French Girl. Against all reason, I'm trusting you to keep watch. I'll be back. And if anyone does come around--"

"Protect him?"

"He'll handle that." Crowley nodded at the pedestrians on the street, the other patrons of the cafe. "Protect them."

"Right. Because he would."

"And because I don't want to have to tell him that anything happened to his people." And because, he was increasingly sure, he couldn't hold on any longer without endangering them himself. The power was buzzing under his skin with nowhere to go, and he gave a rueful glance up to the bookshop window. He wanted to go check on his angel. He also knew that he wouldn't be able to do any real healing work like this, and might manage to make things worse. "Couple hours, tops."

Elluviel was ordering more tea and a croissant as he walked unsteadily away.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley stalked. He prowled. Freed of the need to pretend, to be _nice,_ he wasn't sure his feet were even hitting the ground. He moved through the streets a being of broken glass, shedding shards and splinters as he went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahaha waiting a day between updates is HAAARRRD so have a bonus one today. 
> 
> (seriously, I am in awe of people who can do this. I was going to try it because I love GETTING updates and having something to look forward to but I'm not sure how much self-control I still have, y'all)

Crowley stalked. He prowled. Freed of the need to pretend, to be _nice,_ he wasn't sure his feet were even hitting the ground. He moved through the streets a being of broken glass, shedding shards and splinters as he went.

If he survived this--if everyone survived this, if Elluviel hadn't been lying to him after all--well, someday when it was all over he was going to tell Aziraphale about it. He would whisper it to his angel in the dark of night. He would finally let himself fall apart and then, encircled in impossibly strong arms, let his jagged edges be smoothed back together.

If they all survived this.

Traffic signals malfunctioned as he passed and the air rang with indignant shouts and the crunch of metal. Light fixtures popped and card readers stopped working. Trays of drinks and platters of dishes fell with crashes and cries and the sad _boioioing_ of the last plate rolling. A woman caught her high heel in a crack in the pavement and it snapped off; a man tripped on the kerb and dropped his coffee. A boy wiped out on his bicycle just soon enough to avoid shooting into a traffic snarl, not soon enough for a soft landing. 

The shards of him ground together.

She was right. She was right and it _was_ too much; he should have known it would be too much. But the hell of it was, he would do it again. With or without her he would have done it again, until he couldn't anymore. Because he had chosen his side, and it was Their Side every time.

Piss-poor excuse for a demon, taking an angel as his lodestone. But he'd never wanted to be a demon anyway. 

He felt less like he might just blow away, now, with a trail of chaos behind him. But it wasn't enough yet. His fingers were kneading and twisting at his chest, trying to soothe the ache there and obscurely glad it hurt because he could still feel that tether. _Aziraphale is there. He's not fine, not yet, but he's there._

Crowley passed a pub, considered, disregarded it. Nobody in there wanted anything he could twist to his purposes. Another--too many people looking for hookups. Maybe later, but not now, not yet. He was still overflowing, too chaotic. He needed... 

There. That way, already building up. A grotty dive of a bar he normally wouldn't have bothered with, but lush and ripe for the picking.

The door closed behind a Crowley tilted to the feminine, long lean near-androgyny with a mildly enhanced suggestion of hips and breasts as she stepped over and ordered a whiskey sour, then turned her back to the bar and leaned against it. Pulled the cherry from the glass and sucked it into her lips, letting it stain them bright red. 

And now, she had their attention. She took a sip of her drink, smiled and breathed out a modest stream of anger and lust. Not too much, that was the hardest part--no matter how overfull she was, dead people were no fun and her angel would be unhappy, so she made herself throttle it back.

The bar fight spilled into the next bar before the constabulary showed to break it up. Forgotten and unnoticed, Crowley walked out through the fracas smiling and indulged in a gratified stretch. That had been... that felt _good,_ so good. She already felt less broken.

Another one of those and she might just be okay.

It took some walking to find another so ripe for the picking. She didn't waste a moment of it--tyres went flat, ice cream scoops slid off cones. Drinks orders got mixed up and sodas and beers exploded on opening. People were _irritated,_ in a self-propelling wave across the city.

It was satisfying. It was _delicious._

One more fight took the overload down enough that she felt nearly safe. Just the absence of the headache was like sun after a storm, making her wonder how long it had been building. Even the throb in her chest had eased. She touched her fingers to her sternum, feeling for that echo of Aziraphale. _Coming home, angel. We're going to figure this out._

She allowed herself one last stop on the way back, though. There was a club there just ramping up for the night, one she'd never noticed on her infrequent visits through this part of the city. Its energy called her, sang to the ragged patchwork of her as she stepped inside. The floor was filled with dancers, joyous and frenetic and often completely outside or in-between the traditional gender norms. An array of various pride flags on the wall cemented it. 

Crowley smiled. She'd had some thoughts toward a nice little _digestif--_ find some singles club choked with people on the pull and ramp them up with a nice dose of lust to finish things off--but this was... this was better, so much better. 

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked at the power she'd been clutching. Burned a lot of it off, yes; she felt so much less ragged. And even after all that she felt topped off, still holding onto a pool of golden angelic light that she hadn't yet managed to release or turn into her own.

It had started as Wrath. Full to bursting and overfull, she hadn't been able to turn it away from wrath, make it into something more, more _Aziraphale._ But now? After she'd bled so much off?

She took the last of it, and shaped it. Built it into what she needed, pulled it away from destruction. Bent it, for these people in-between and at the edges.

When she released it in a sigh it was as a blessing, not as anger. 

Well, all right, and there was _some_ lust in it, as well. She hadn't gone completely soft. 

She could see, if she looked, golden threads floating towards people--twined with a little dark, snagging and sinking in where it was needed and welcome. 

She felt... whole, almost, and she laughed. _For Crowley saw it, and it was Good. Mostly._

Someone cleared their throat next to her. She turned to see a slight person in a sequined skirt and elaborately slashed t-shirt looking up at her with wide eyes. "Oi, you're way out of my league, but... have a dance?"

She almost wanted to, to take a dance for sheer joy of not being overloaded, but all the reasons not to tugged at her breastbone. "Thanks, luv, but not tonight. Someone waiting on me."

They smiled and bounced into a little half-bow. "Lucky stiff. Can't blame me for trying," and dove back into the press of bodies.

Crowley looked after them for a moment, and then went home.

***

Crowley could see the other angel watching her curiously as she came back towards the shop. "No trouble, then?" she said.

"What did you do?" Elluviel's eyes were wide "Your energy--! How did you change that much, that quickly?"

"Told you I'd be back. I need to pop in and check on him. It's been too long."

"Nobody came down or tried to go in."

Crowley tapped her chest. "Know that. Not my worry. I just need to check. I... Yeah, I'd invite you in but I don't think he'd take to it."

"I still have questions. And... there are some things that you should know. Probably. I think."

"I'll come back out, then. Won't be a tick." She gave a vague wave and headed into the shop.

Aziraphale lay as she had left him, temperature barely starting to climb. She soothed it, stroked his forehead through it and petted his dandelion-fluff hair. "I met your colleague today. Maybe you're not the only one worth anything after all. You'd be proud of her." Long fingers played at the angel's temples, calming strokes more for Crowley's own sake than Aziraphale's. "I need you to come back, okay? Just... Just come home."

***

Elluviel was waiting for her. "How is he?"

"Same. Fever was starting to rise. Brought it back down. I..." Her face worked for a minute around the words she couldn't say. "I don't actually have any more answers than I did, about how to help him." She dropped into the empty chair, running her hands through her hair. "And it's maddening, yeah? But I feel... So much better. So I _owe you one."_ The last three words were grated out as though they hurt. "Bleah. Don't tell anyone. I can't go about owing favors to angels, it'll ruin my cred."

Elluviel was smiling, but it faded quickly. "About that. While you were gone-- _don't_ tell me what you were doing!--I had another look. Just from out here, I didn't try to get close! I think you'd have felt if I had, anyway."

Crowley growled a little, but only a little. "Go on."

"Don't take it the wrong way, but you, you're very distracting. Leaving myself vulnerable around a demon-- _being_ around a demon at all, it's an energy that wants all my attention, no? Danger danger danger. And that, that insane patchwork of power you were holding... Well. Hard to look away from."

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

"What I'm saying is I was not giving him my full attention before, because I was also looking at you. And I wanted to, to see if I could see anything else. To see if I could help, somehow."

"And what did you see, while I wasn't around distracting you?" Crowley said. 

"I still haven't gotten close," the angel said. "Those wounds, though... they go right to the core of him. But the weird thing is, the thing that shouldn't be possible, is that _so do you._ You were so overloaded, it was impossible not to see how he's woven all through you. And I was too distracted to see it in him before but you're there, too. You two are part of each other and it shouldn't work, but it does. It's..." 

"If you say ineffable, _so help me--"_

"Baffling, actually." Elluviel smiled. "And hopeful. You can touch him when nobody else can. You can help him."

"I can't, I don't know how!"

"You took care of his corporation. That's not a demonic skill."

"Not the same. He showed me how--the body wants to heal, he said. But his body is fine and I don't know what to--"

"Crowley!" she broke in. "Did you think the Almighty made us that different?"

"...yes?"

"You know Aziraphale better than anyone. He knows you. He'll let you near him." 

"I don't--"

"You do. Trust yourself."

Crowley laughed, hollowly. "Bit of an ask, there."

"He trusts you." 

It hit her harder than it should have, settling on her shoulders with astonishing weight as she tried to figure out what to say to that. 

Elluviel took the decision out of her hands. "I _really_ need to report in. I don't think there will be anyone else come knocking, once I do--something really weird is going on Upstairs, and I think Someone isn't happy about it. Have... have Aziraphale give me a call, when he's doing better? Or you can." She pulled a card out of the air and handed it to him. "I'll check back--I'll call the shop first, just in case." She stood, waving payment onto the table. "I don't know what you two are anymore, but it's not what we were told, by a long shot."

Crowley looked at the card in her hand. "What were you told?"

"Long story for another night," Elluviel said, and was gone. 

Crowley looked after her for a moment, and went back into the bookshop.

***

The body wants to heal, she thought, taking the steps up two at a time. Aziraphale lay on the bed, still and quiet, and Crowley sighed. "Trust yourself," she mocked. "As if that ever got me anywhere."

Still, though... her first reaction had been to reach out. Nearly all her reflexes had been to reach out, and she'd had to stop herself from doing so--out of pain, out of fear of hurting him, fear of making it worse. 

He wants to heal. What does he need, to heal? _What does he need?_

_...Oh._

She could slap herself, really. 

She was still riding a little on the chaos, on the blessing; waiting wouldn't make her better. A wave of her hand had her in her soft sleep clothes. She climbed into their bed and wrapped herself around him.

And stepped sideways.

He was turbulence and pain, here, a ball of hurt tethered to his body but unsettled, unable to settle. A soundless scream. 

Crowley didn't bump him this time. Didn't keep herself separate, but spread herself out and wrapped around him here, too. She made herself a cocoon and enfolded him, sank down into the roil of him. **I'm here, love.**

It _hurt,_ that much angelic energy; it pulsed and sliced. But she didn't have to absorb it this time, or ground it, or reshape it. She just had to be there, and hold him. She set herself to endure.

The twisting mass slowed, almost imperceptibly at first, then more. Like a kid being swaddled, Crowley thought, slightly hysterically, but it held--in that place past matter, she concentrated on _warm, safe._ She concentrated on her own self, on breaching the walls that held out the world, that had held in her hopeless, helpless love for all of history and still kept it tamped down to a manageable degree. She knocked them down, blew them wide and poured herself into him, seeing it fly from the core of her down the cords that bound them. _Here. It's what you're made of, it's what you give to the world. It's what you give me, when I don't deserve it. It's what you give them. Take mine, angel, take it and welcome. There will always be more. I held it for six thousand years, and it's all for you._

He slowed, settled, turned so she could see that wound. It cut her to the quick, getting a proper view; slices that went right down into him, into the Grace of him, flaring angrily. _They tried to make him Fall,_ she thought, with a spike of anger, and tamped down on it when he started to twist again. 

**I'm here, love,** she repeated, almost singing--remembering what singing used to be, when they were all family, when the clarity and joy of song was what they'd been made of, the way they melded with each other. Wishing she hadn't lost the ability to sing the stars into being.

Now, with him stilled, she could see the threads of her in him, the threads of him in her, woven together in a tapestry neither of them had known they were creating. She stroked down those scars, pouring in as much love as she could and watching it sink in along those threads. Winced when they flared up and spiked into her, but soothed them just the same. She couldn't sing her angel whole, but she could abide pain and give back love.

The flaring quieted, under her touch. Slowly, so slowly, the color faded from that heart-stopping war shade, to something calmer--still hurt, yes, not whole and not healed. There would never again not be a scar here, she knew. But better.

Now he had stilled she could see the tethers to his corporation, loose and faint enough that she wondered how far he'd been from losing hold in spite of her efforts. She guided them to a deeper seating, stroked him gently towards congruence with the body he'd worn for so long. **Come home,** she sang, and it wasn't the voice she used to have, but it was singing all the same. **Come home, come home. I can hold you like this, forever. Come home.**

She wasn't sure when it stopped hurting, the energy that washed back through her. She wasn't sure when she stopped singing, when she stopped pouring love into her touches and tracing those wounds with it (she had no throat here, to get sore, no arms to get tired).

Crowley woke, blearily, back in her own corporation, wrapped around her angel. His eyes were closed, his breathing even...

His arm was around her, snugging her against him. She sobbed in relief, burying her face into his shoulder, and let herself shake to pieces, just a bit.

***

Aziraphale slept for two more days. Crowley bounced between being frantic that he hadn't woken up and relieved that his sleep was like sleep, and then spent hours more time outside the physical, holding him, singing to him, pouring herself into him. 

The first time she saw him shift his body as though it were normal sleep on a normal night, she felt a rush of quite undemonic joy in whatever was currently serving her for a heart and had to go have a sit down.

Mrs. Parcival got tired of waiting and knocked on the door with a pot full of soup and--yep, Crowley thought, peering past the sparkly paper, a gift basket of wares from her store. Being Mrs. Parcival, she didn't bat an eye at Crowley's shift in presentation. She'd seen it all before, bless her busybody heart.

Crowley left the basket by the till and popped most of the soup into the small kitchenette fridge, taking a bowl of it with her up the stairs. "Soup, angel. Mrs. Parcival brought some over. I'm expecting overflow cakes from your bakeries any day now; they'll be missing you. Also she gave us a gift baske--"

Blue eyes focused on her as she came in the bedroom door. "You changed your hair," Aziraphale said, voice creaky.

"Aziraphale? _Angel!"_ She nearly dropped the soup, got it onto the side table with only a little sloppage and threw herself at her angel. "You're back," she said, voice muffled in his chest as she knelt beside the bed, holding on tight. 

"It seems so, yes. That was... unpleasant," he said. She was squishing one of his arms against the bed, the other one came up and burrowed into her hair. 

She leaned into it with a sob. "Yeah, it was bollocks." Blubbing into an angel's chest was going to kill all the rest of her cred and she didn't even care. "How much do you remember?"

"Not... a great deal, I don't think. I was pulled to heaven, quite unexpectedly. Very rude of them. And then... it _hurt._ Anger, so much anger. And being desperate to get here, to get to you."

"You got here. Scared the life out of me, but you got here."

"I see that, dearest." His hand ran through her hair, petting down to her shoulder. "I feel terrible."

Crowley bit off a laugh and reluctantly pulled away, wiping her eyes of plausibly deniable tears. "Yeah, your corporation has been through a lot. News flash, I'm not the best doctor out there." She stood, shakily, and got a chair. "Mrs. Parcival brought soup. You're going to eat some."

Aziraphale managed to protest even while he was watching the bowl hungrily. "Oh, but surely you brought that up for you!"

"I was gonna wave it under your nose, angel. See if it got a reaction. Can you sit up?"

"...Oh dear." 

Between them they got him propped on some pillows, and he allowed himself--after an indignant protest--to be fed. "I am not an invalid," he said after the first few bites.

"'Course you're not. You're just a little temporarily shaky and I don't want to have to miracle soup off the sheets," Crowley said, and fed him another spoonful. "Seriously. I spent days trying to keep your fever down. If you feel like you've been running flat-out for the last week you're not far wrong. Eat."

"You'd think I would remember that," Aziraphale said, accepting more soup. "I just... It hurt, and I was, I was so angry. I remember lashing out. And then..." He blinked, eyelids fluttering, and looked Crowley over. "You. I remember you. You were so... you held me, and there was, there was _love,_ and it was you. What happened?"

"From my point of view? I was trying to feed you soup, and you got stroppy. Eat."

"Crowley...."

Crowley set down the bowl for a moment and laid a hand over her angel's heart. "I promise, absolutely, I will tell you what went on. Right now I just want to appreciate you, that you're back."

"How long...?"

"What day is today? What day was it when you got taken, even? I don't know. Been busy. Just eat your damn soup and get better."

"Oh, this is all nonsense. I'm back now, and I should be able to take care of problems with this corporation," Aziraphale said, irritated. He snapped his fingers--

\--and paled, eyes going wide. "Ow," he said in a small voice.

"Tried to tell you," Crowley said with a sigh. "You came back, okay? You made it home. I couldn't figure out how to go get you, and you made it home. You were hurt, and you were all knotted up on yourself." She picked up the soup again and popped a spoonful into his unresisting mouth. "I don't know what happened to you, but you came back to me and I will never forget it."

The light painted shadows in the hollows of his face, hollows that hadn't been there last week. "You know by now I can tell when you're lying," he said softly.

"Selective editing. Got me through 6000 years of Hell." Another spoonful of soup. "Theories, angel. I have theories. I have no facts. Oh, except one. Angel, works in France--dark skin, really pretty?"

"Elluviel?"

"That's the one. She's a good egg. You'll be proud."

"What on Earth does she have to do with anything?"

"Came to visit. Was actually pretty helpful, for an angel." She scraped the last of the soup from the bowl and fed it to him, then miracled the bowl into the kitchen.

"You're not going to tell me any more, are you?"

"Oh, I don't think so. Not until you're more recovered."

"Serpent," the angel said fondly. "I think I should like a bath."

Crowley plopped down on her side of the bed. "Demon," she said, waving her fingers in the air, and slumped onto the covers beside him. "You can have a bath when you can sit up. I'll even scrub your back."

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (so when I was planning this out in my head, this was going to be the end, but then the story took a different turn and just 'hey he's back!' didn't seem like resolution, so fair warning--from here on out it's mostly Recovery and Explanations and Learning to Deal and Being Soft. You've been warned.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He sighed and relaxed into the softness of the mattress. "This shouldn't be better. This shouldn't be _possible,"_ he said. "How have we not destroyed each other?"
> 
> "That's what Elluviel said."
> 
> "And what was she doing here?" Aziraphale's eyes fluttered closed. "You never did say."
> 
> "She was helpful. We talked about different energies and I think the conclusion we came to was 'fuck if I know'."
> 
> "That doesn't sound like her," he murmured. 
> 
> "I'm paraphrasing."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another longish chapter--there was no good place to break it earlier.

"I am not that heavy!" Aziraphale said as Crowley half-carried him to the bath. He had managed to sit up all by himself but was obviously dismayed by the residual weakness in his body. 

"Metaphysically, you're enormous and I'm a snake," Crowley grunted, shoulders up under one of the angel's arms, slender arm around his waist. "You're lucky you weren't awake to remember me wrestling you up the stairs and into bed. Wasn't pretty."

"You could use a little of your infernal strength."

"Oh, no chance. Might burn you. And it never worked well on you anyway. She did not make Her guardians to be ephemeral floaty things, angel. She made you to bloody well _guard things._ You're very solid."

Crowley sat him down on the edge of the tub--despite the grousing it really had been getting easier as he got his feet under him, she thought--and waved at the porcelain antique. It obediently filled itself with scented water, steaming gently. 

"All right," she said, looking at Aziraphale critically. "Pajamas off. How do you want to do this?"

"Is there any point at all in saying that I'm not an invalid?"

"Nope. I can undress you, you can try undressing yourself, or I can--" she wiggled her fingers in the air. "Your choice."

"You are a _wretched_ nurse."

"And again she says, demon. Tick tock."

"I can undress myself, thank you." He started working on the buttons, fingers only fumbling a little. "You are being obstreperous."

"With malice aforethought. Because I _thought I lost you,_ you angelic git." Her voice broke, and all the banter leaked out. She leaned down to rest her forehead in his curls so he wouldn't see her face, so she could remind herself that he was here, now. "And then you came back and I thought I was going to lose you all over again."

Aziraphale stopped messing with his buttons, and put his arms around her instead. She followed suit, carefully supporting his weight instead of leaning on him. "You really must tell me what happened, my dear."

"Get in the water, angel. This is taking too long." She snapped her fingers and he yelped as his skin suddenly encountered cold porcelain. The pajamas reappeared hanging neatly behind the door. 

"Oh, this is better," Aziraphale said, leaning back into the water once they'd gotten him in the tub. "Now talk to me."

"Short version?" She picked a shampoo at random and started on his hair, working it into a lather so she didn't have to see his soft amazing intolerable face. "You vanished. Nowhere, couldn't find you. Checked Hell, nada. Checked Heaven, only they were ready for me and knocked me arse-over-teakettle. Hurt like the blazes, too." He tried to turn to her and she stopped him, fingers rubbing down into his scalp. "Don't look at me, I won't get through this if you do."

"Oh, my dear girl," he said, facing forward while she finger-combed soap through his hair.

"Your occult books are utter shite when it comes to actually useful information about Heaven, you know that?"

"I'm afraid so, yes. Many of them have just enough truth to be dangerous, unfortunately; it's why they don't live in the shop. You tried them, then?"

"All of them, I think. I thought it must be Heaven, if they'd bothered to lay a trap. It had to be them, because the other option... there was no other option, not really." _Because if you were dead, angel, if you were gone, I was going to go follow you,_ she didn't say.

"I would have told you they weren't useful to us. If I'd ever known there might be a need," Aziraphale said.

"I figured it out, eventually. Didn't stop me from looking over and over. And then... you came back. You came back and blew out the wards and drew a circle in your own blood to get here and I couldn't tell what was wrong, you were stoppered down so tight--" Crowley reached for the pitcher and tipped it into the bathwater. "Right. Head back. Rinsing."

He obligingly tipped his head back, eyes tight, and she poured clean water into his hair. The feeling of suds sliding over her hand was... cleansing, she thought.

"I didn't know what to do for you--you were barely in your body at all, and I couldn't reach you. So I took care of your corporation best I could. Until you were back in it." She refilled the pitcher. "One more," she said, and carefully poured over his hair until the soap was all gone and his curls were starting to spring damply back. "Which you are."

"You seem to be leaving a few things out, dearest." Aziraphale dashed water from his eyes and settled back for a soak. "That does not cover everything."

"Everything is a big word. Told you. Broad strokes, short version. That's your lot." She pulled over the small stool and sat on it next to him, idly running her hand over his shoulder. "You're here, now."

"I am," he said. "In the extremely sore flesh." He caught her hand and held onto it, turned to face her. "You went back to Hell for me."

"Just the back passage. Didn't even see anyone."

"And to Heaven."

"Didn't even make it to the top of the stairs."

"You were my incredibly brave demon."

"Shut it. You're going to make me have feelings all over the bathroom and it won't be pretty."

"It always is," Aziraphale smiled, that smile that said he knew he was being a bastard and he knew she loved it. She heroically didn't dunk his head under the water. "What made you change your hair?"

"Oi, it's not just the hair. I grew a perfectly nice pair of tits, too. Don't bury the lede," she grumbled. "It was useful for a, a temptation. And then, I don't know. It's been a while. I like it."

"So do I." He lifted her hand and kissed it gallantly, formally, as though he wasn't convalescing naked in a bathtub right in front of her. "Just curious."

"Be curious later. Be better now," she grumbled. "Do you want to soak for a bit? Need anything?"

"Just you, dearest demon. Although if you're not going to tell me the truth you could pick out a fiction and read to me?"

"Eugh. Okay, but only this time. You know me and books," she said, and got up to go find one she could stand. 

She didn't think it was her imagination that he said softly, as she left, "But you read for me."

***

"Crowley..."

"Mmmmm?" She was curled up against her angel, mostly asleep and for once not panicking but just letting herself drift warm and happy. His angelic radiance was ramping back up and she deserved a good bask, dammit.

"What are you doing?"

"Sleeping. You should do it too. G'back to sleep, angel. S'good for you." _Go back to sleep, so I can, so you can heal, so we can pretend this whole stupid thing never happened._

"Either tell me what you're doing or wake up and lie to me properly." Aziraphale sounded peevish.

That was less than ideal. A peevish Aziraphale was an Aziraphale that wasn't going to let her go back to sleep any time soon, and therefore an Aziraphale who needed to be mollified.

"Ugh, fine," she said, and pried open her eyes to look at him. "What do you mean, what am I--"

Her hand was running lightly down his chest, stroking gently and returning to his shoulder to start again. "I did not ask it to do that," she said, not stopping. "I--" Hang on, she thought, and slipped a little sideways--not a full step, not yet, just enough to see...

Yep, she was running right down his scars, love and power flowing from her fingertips into his injuries. 

"Reiki," she lied. "It was one of mine. Totally woo-woo, but makes me feel better."

He raised his eyebrows at her, highly skeptical and, very shortly, faintly queasy. 

"Don't look," she said, entirely too late. 

"What--" Aziraphale gingerly touched his chest with his material fingers, looking very disconcerted. "That's... ow," he faltered.

"Told you not to look," Crowley said. "You're still healing." _They tried to make you Fall._ She bit down on the words before she could say them.

"And what are you doing?"

"Helping," she told him, hand still stroking along with her other self. "I can stop the physical if you want, but... how does it feel?"

"Hurts," Aziraphale said. She stopped and pulled her arm back; he reached out and caught it. "Not what you're doing. What you're doing feels... better. Good. But... I thought the problem was my corporation."

"Ha! I went through that, too. Your corporation is weaker, yeah, but that makes sense--you're not going to have the control yet." She concentrated, let more power spill from her fingertips and into him, tracing back along those terrible scars. 

He sighed and relaxed into the softness of the mattress. "This shouldn't be better. This shouldn't be _possible,"_ he said. "How have we not destroyed each other?"

"That's what Elluviel said."

"And what was she doing here?" Aziraphale's eyes fluttered closed. "You never did say."

"She was helpful. We talked about different energies and I think the conclusion we came to was 'fuck if I know'."

"That doesn't sound like her," he murmured. 

"I'm paraphrasing. You were hurt and I didn't know what to do for you. She showed up to check on you, and..." Crowley peered at Aziraphale, whose breathing was evening out. "Are you asleep?"

"Hmm? 'Course not. Angels don't need sleep," Aziraphale muttered, obviously running headlong toward sleep.

"Sleep, angel. Storytime later." She added a bit more power out of curiosity--curiosity had always been her downfall, why stop now?--and he relaxed even further. 

"...Cheating," he said, and was still. 

Crowley looked at her hand. "I must only use this power for good," she said. "And to get out of conversations I don't want to have."

*** 

Crowley was trying to remember how time worked.

It seemed a little unfair, since as a demon committed to sloth she had never had the best relationship with time to begin with. But Aziraphale was starting to become concerned, so she set herself to pay attention.

She was nearly certain that it was morning when her tired principality awakened--just barely morning still, but morning. At least, her watch said it was almost noon when he stirred and turned on his side against her.

"Good morning," said the angel.

"Mmmphff," said Crowley. She pried one eye open to look at her watch. "Blrfh. Why's it so dark?"

He shifted against her, and there was the lovely feeling of his fingers trailing down her feath--wait, what? She forced both eyes open this time.

The two of them were cocooned under one of her wings. All told she was quite warm and cozy and she now knew why.

"Fairly sure I didn't mean to do that, either," she said.

"And here I thought it was a lovely present for me," Aziraphale said, running his fingers down the inside of her wing again.

She shivered and stretched. "I hope you're recovered soon. You owe me a wing rub." It hadn't taken terribly long after the end of the world for them to discover that while Aziraphale could be plied with sweets and wine, Crowley was the biggest wing-rub slut either of them could have dreamed. "I've been good, I deserve it."

"I love your wings, my dearest. You know you only have to ask." He hadn't stopped combing through night-black feathers, soothing the skin beneath, but his touch was growing less sure as his arm began to tremble.

Dammit, this was not where his energy should be going. Crowley caught his hand. "How are you feeling?"

Aziraphale sighed, but let his arm drop with visible relief. "Quite distressingly weakened, still. It's most inconvenient. Also I am thinking longingly of breakfast."

"Haven't been to the shops. I can get something in, though. Anything you particularly fancy?"

"Oh, some of the pastries from Mr. Wright's shop would go down a treat!" Aziraphale said, with a broad, enthusiastic smile.

"And I can trust you to stay in bed and not try to overexert yourself while I was gone?" said Crowley. She got an increasingly bright smile in response, along with pleading blue eyes.

"Delivery it is," Crowley said. "I'll call over and have him send someone round."

"His shop doesn't deliver!"

"He will deliver for you, angel," she said. 

"Using a miracle is cheating." Aziraphale was halfway to a pout.

"Like there's any restaurant in the whole of Soho who wouldn't deliver here, angel. You're theirs and they know it. No miracles necessary."

Aziraphale finished his pout, but didn't continue to argue.

*** 

By evening, he was feeling better enough to be restless, if not better enough to be entirely steady. Crowley had offered to set up a TV, bring over some movies, or arrange for any other entertainment the angel wanted.

And had, somehow, yet again, ended up sitting above the musty book shop reading out loud until her eyes started to ache.

"That's your lot, angel," she said rubbing her face. "That's it. No more. I'm knackered and my eyes are done."

"Oh, your eyes! I should have remembered, I'm so sorry, my dear."

"Just don't get used to this whole 'being waited on hand and foot' thing," she said, as though there were anything in the world she wouldn't do for him.

***

He followed her into the kitchen the next day as she was making his requested cocoa. "I told you to stay."

"I'm doing much better," Aziraphale said mildly. The rickety chair creaked with his very earthly weight as he settled into it. He did indeed seem to be doing better; yesterday he had been far less steady. "And I wanted to talk to you."

"We can talk, angel."

 _"Not_ in bed. Somewhere you might actually have to answer me instead of making me all sleepy again."

Bollocks, she hadn't thought she'd been that obvious. "Whatcha want to know?" Crowley said, turning back to stir the milk. She'd suspected that he had something up his sleeve when he'd asked for 'real, proper cocoa' and now she knew.

"I need to know what happened, Crowley," the angel said gently.

It was the gentleness that struck her, that made this so hard. He knew, he _knew_ that she didn't want to talk about it, and he'd outmaneuvered her because it was important to him to know.

Because the very fact that she wasn't telling him meant there was something to tell.

Fucking _arseballs._

"I don't know. Not for sure. You came back... So hurt." She stirred, scraping the bottom of the pan, and refused to look at him. "I didn't know what to do for you--you taught me so much about healing humans but it was, it was _you,_ and your body didn't know what to do and so I kept your fever down and soothed your nerves and hoped you'd find your way back."

"That's perfectly sound practice, dearest. Good thinking."

"And I thought I might just... nudge you. Just a touch. See if it helped, if maybe you wouldn't unkink a bit."

"Also quite logical."

"And then you punched me into the wall," Crowley went on, carefully relaxed.

"Oh, _love."_

She stirred. _Don't look at him, don't look at his stupid soft wonderful intolerable face, don't look to see his eyes reflecting that broken tone in his voice...._

"I wasn't kidding. Metaphysically you really outclass me. And..." This needed a lot of stirring, really. It was steaming, just faintly, and she busied herself with adding the chocolate and keeping the temperature even while it all came together.

"Crowley," Aziraphale said.

"Hand me the mugs, angel?" It was a deflection, of course it was. And it wasn't going to work. She wasn't stupid--Aziraphale was going to get it out of her sooner or later and if she kept mum it still wouldn't work because he was going to _notice._

But maybe he could face it on the outside of some cocoa, and that would help.

The mugs clanked on the counter beside her and she poured from the saucepan, carefully, with all her attention.

"It smells delicious," Aziraphale said, falsely casual, with the creak of his ancient chair as he sat down again.

"You want cocoa, you get cocoa."

Aziraphale blew on his cocoa for a moment before breaking. "I'm so sorry, Crowley, you know I would never--"

 _Fine._ Crowley looked up, and Aziraphale's face was just as astonishingly soft as she'd feared. "I know. I know you would never." She settled into the other chair, and laid her hand over Aziraphale's on the worn wooden surface. "I know you didn't mean to knock me around, angel. And I can heal my own bruises. And I knew it would mess with you. Why d'you think I didn't want to talk about it?"

"I remember... I remember being so angry. I suppose that was the lashing out I remember." The angel wrapped his hands around his mug and took a sip. "Is that cinnamon?"

"Yep," Crowley said, without meeting his eyes. 

"Crowley...."

"I thought the cinnamon did nicely, m'self," Crowley mused.

"That _was_ the lashing out I did?"

"That was definitely a lashing-out, yeah."

"I told you, I can tell when you're lying. And why are you rubbing your chest?" 

Crowley looked down and saw her fingers kneading at her breastbone in a way that had rapidly become familiar. "Uh..."

"Is that... where I hit you?" Aziraphale had never been a master of deception, not with nearly every stray emotion written on that face, and the look of naked self-recrimination there now did just terrible things to Crowley's blackened heart.

Primarily it reminded her of why she didn't want to have this conversation in the first place. Possibly ever.

"Uh, yeah." That might be safe enough. It was even... okay 'true' was probably a stretch. But it wasn't _un_ true.

"Oh, and it's still bothering you?! Let me see--" Aziraphale reached toward her across the small table before she could react and brushed his fingers across her clavicle. And froze, calculations of surprise and concern and finally guilt writing themselves across his face. "Crowley, what is--is that--" he glanced down to her chest and back to her face, stricken. "What have I done to you?"

"I think you, um, recognized me. You were lashing out, yeah. But I think you also wanted to... hold on. To me."

"How does that--" his eyes got a faraway look for a moment, then slammed wide open and caught hers. "Crowley!"

So much for keeping him from looking. "S'not so bad now. You're so much better. Barely feel it, really."

"What did--How does that even work? I don't even see how we're--" He sputtered for a moment. It was really odd, Crowley thought, seeing her angel at a loss for words. "Were you just planning to _not tell me?"_

"Uh, yes? At least until you were better. What was I supposed to do, go to you when you could barely sit up and say, 'good to have you back, love, now if you could possibly just unclamp your essence from my heart, no, nothing scary happened, just relax'? There's been a lot going on!" Her hands were balling into fists and consciously relaxed them, forcing herself to breathe. "We'll figure it out, angel. Drink your cocoa." She reached for her own and sipped, letting the chocolate and the small ritual calm her down.

"What else haven't you been telling me? Why--" Aziraphale stopped and shook his head. "Why won't you tell me? And why do you--" he waved vaguely at her--"look so, so odd?"

"Not nice to tell a lady she looks odd."

"You know what I mean!"

"Drink your cocoa, angel," Crowley said again. "This might be the best batch I've ever made. Maybe terror and repression are good ingredients, I don't know." She took another sip of hers, ignoring his glare. "You chide yourself for being soft, but you know, you're not, not really. You've chosen to be soft. You want to be soft, and you wrap yourself in softness, because it's what you want to be. It's how you want to interact, with them. And with me." Another sip. "You were so, so hurt. It cut right through your softness and angel, love, you go down deep. There is so much of you under there."

"Is... Did I..." Aziraphale looked down at his hands, lying trembling on the table and oh, the naked fear in those blue eyes was heartbreaking. "Is everyone safe?"

"You didn't hurt any of your people," she said, and some absolutely wretched push toward honesty made her add, "I didn't let you."

"Crowley, my dear. I'm so sorry, I--" 

_"Angel,"_ she said. "I've got you. Our side, remember? If our positions were switched you'd have me, I know you would. And if I, if something happened and I didn't know myself I still know you wouldn't let me hurt them."

"You wouldn't," Aziraphale said with absolute faith.

"I wouldn't now. I don't want to. But I'm still a demon. The impulse is there, sometimes; so is the power. And power doesn't have to mean it to be destructive." Her cocoa had chilled down unacceptably, she warmed it with a thought and Aziraphale's too, for good measure. "It isn't getting cold anymore. Drink it."

"I should never have put you through this."

"You didn't. Whoever hurt you did." _And if I ever get my hands on mister smarmy-arse Gabriel or that psychotic sycophant he drags around they're going to find out just how far I really can breathe Hellfire._

She watched him critically for a moment as he thought--he was paler than he had been when he'd first sat down, and his eyes were going glassy. It did not make her feel better when his next words were, "Anything else you're not telling me?"

"What, somehow that wasn't enough unpleasant revelations for one day? Drink your cocoa or I'm dragging you back to bed. Well, I'm dragging you back to bed either way. But this way you get cocoa first."

Aziraphale tried to be stern but the irritation was almost swallowed up under grey fatigue. He drank some cocoa. "But what about...?" he said, waving vaguely at Crowley's chest and the space between them. "I don't know how to let go! I don't even know what I did!"

"We'll tackle this," Crowley waved, much more succinctly, "when you're more recovered. It's nothing I can't live through." _It's almost comforting, sometimes, because even if it hurts I can tell you're there,_ she didn't say. "Finish. Your. Cocoa."

*** 

Crowley was itching under her skin--not a power build up this time, just... ecchh, she'd been so unrelentingly reliable and supportive and she didn't begrudge her angel a bit of it, she really didn't. Honestly.

But if she didn't get out and cause at least a little bit of mayhem she was going to throw a tremendous wobbler and a bookshop with a recovering angel was not the place to do it. So she secured from Aziraphale his promise that he would not try to go out, he would not attempt 'a light spot of organizing' (at least, not after he'd just about fallen over the day before because he kept insisting he was fine right up until he wasn't), and that he would _behave_ himself, and she had headed out into London.

She couldn't get up to anything like knocking out all the London mobile signals without significant planning, but a few dropped calls and wifi reboots were simple enough. Watching people look at their mobiles in absolute betrayal made for an excellent appetizer, and she didn't even feel like she had to be out of Soho first for those. A couple traffic snarls did wonders, and, for dessert, she walked through the park annoying the swans and letting them menace hapless tourists. It was a brilliant day, all told. Really worked out the kinks. 

Well, at least until she got back to the shop and remembered how much wiggle room Aziraphale had learned to find in promises he didn't want to keep.

Her angel had dressed in a loose approximation of his regular togs--he wore his balding familiar waistcoat with trousers and a cream shirt, but had foregone the bow tie and coat. His feet were only sock-clad as he sat cheerfully in the wing-chair in the back room.

And he was clearly prepared for tea, with a pot and two cups on the low table alongside a platter of pastries that--yep, had definitely come from Mr Wright's shop down the way.

Aziraphale looked up from his book and smiled. "Oh, hello love. Back already?"

"Good thing too. Those better have been delivered."

"Of course. Mr Wright was quite accommodating and oh, everyone has been so very helpful."

"Also a good thing, since you seem to have trouble with the word 'behave'." Everyone really had been helpful, once Aziraphale had awoken as himself and she had deemed it safe to let the denizens of Soho near their angel--they had not lacked for food or good wishes or anything they needed delivered, and Crowley hadn't had to stretch the bounds of her underused cooking skills in order to keep him fed. 

This though... this did not look like the setup for a friendly neighborhood gossip. If nothing else he almost never allowed people into the shop unless he was done up properly. She filed it under 'deeply suspicious'.

"What's the occasion, angel?" she said breezily, and dropped a kiss on his head as she came through.

"Oh, I just feel like I need to catch up a bit, and thanks are always best delivered in person, don't you think?" 

He was evading. No worries, she'd have it out of him. By the look of things she only had to wait a bit anyway. "Not in the thanking habit, me." She dropped onto the sofa. "Wrong person to ask, really."

"I did rather think you'd want to be out longer, though."

She stretched ostentatiously and reached for the tea set. "I can tell. Wouldn't mind a cuppa, though."

"Crowley!" Aziraphale caught her in mid-reach and held his hand out flat. One of her mugs--the one from the 90s that said 'Sexy Beast' on it in brassy gold letters--appeared in his palm.

He handed it over. "The good set is for company."

"You've been practicing," she said, pouring some tea out of the pot. "Good on you."

"I did tell you I was feeling better."

"Next time you want to practice, though, do it on your own mug."

"I didn't _start_ with your mug, of course. I started off small with some dreadful paperbacks from that lot that came in last mo--"

The wards interrupted, chiming softly. There was a knock at the door.

"Ha! Okay, angel, time's up. Now what are you up to--" Pain knifed through her chest. She whipped her head around to see Aziraphale sitting horrifyingly still, the glow from his eyes unmistakeable.

_Shit._

"Aziraphale," she said. "Angel. Listen--Aw, _crap_ that hurts!--Listen to my voice, angel. I think it's okay. I've got you."

"Aziraphale?" someone called from outside. It definitely wasn't one of the neighbors, or they'd have called for Mr Fell... but it did sound like it might be Elluviel.

Aziraphale was not responding, power ramping up and up--she grabbed it automatically, catching it and pulling it into herself.

And then thought again and gave it a sharp yank instead.

The angel lurched forward, that eerie light fading out of his eyes and leaving them his normal heaven-blue. "Crowley! What on Earth was that for?"

"That? That was because apparently you brought around _sodding angels_ to talk to you while I was out!" she said.

"Not angels, an angel. And you wouldn't talk to m _what did you do to your hands?"_

Oh, bollocking _shag_ her hands were bleeding again. Pain flared in her sliced palms.

"Yeah, hang on a second. I can get this," she said, and started trying to concentrate on healing--

The pain vanished, fading away like dawn clouds. Crowley's eyes snapped open to see Aziraphale falling back into his wing chair, looking wan and extremely proud of himself. There was no sign of the injury on her hand.

"Would you be so kind as to get the door, dear," he said, a little winded. "I believe I might be a bit tired."

Crowley sighed her most annoyed and put-upon sigh and got up to answer the door. "Good show. You really have been practicing," she said on her way. "Knock it off."

The view through the window showed Elluviel and no one else. Crowley opened the door. "Hi again, I can't believe he called you."

"I was glad to hear from him," Elluviel said. "I've been wondering how things were going."

"Just fine, my dear, please come in," Aziraphale piped up from the back. "I've got tea!"

Crowley stomped back behind the other angel, practicing her ungraciousness. "Can't be _lieve_ he bloody called the angels...." She threw herself down on the sofa, arms crossed.

"Crowley, my dear. If you're going to be that way about it, perhaps you could give us a moment?"

"You. Invited. The angels."

"Yes, I did. Unless you'd like to tell me why I shouldn't?" Those blue eyes met hers in a gentle challenge underlaid with celestial steel.

He was doing it. He was doing it again, like he knew what was going on and he called them anyway. "No," she said. "Absolutely not. I refuse to believe that you actually knew."

"It's not terribly difficult to figure out, dearest. I saw those wounds. They weren't made by Hell."

"Then why, _dear heart,"_ she said through her teeth, "did you invite the sodding angels?"

"Singular. An angel. You did say she was helpful." He looked at Elluviel with a smile. "And I'm very glad to see you, dear girl. It's been ever so long since we've been able to get together for a chat."

Elluviel looked back and forth between them. "Did I walk in in the middle of something?"

"Nope," Crowley said. "Just Aziraphale here nearly blowing half of Soho to smithereens. Nothing at all." She smiled, or at least showed fang. "Have a pastry."

"I beg your pardon?" Aziraphale said. 

Crowley held out her hands, palm up. "Did you take a look while you were in there? Or did you just fix it? I'm not complaining, mind; you fixed it better and faster than I could have, but they were bleeding because I was grabbing _your power_ you feckless... trusting... AAAAUGH!" It was too much. She had to stand, she had to move. "Tell him. I can't," she said, and stalked back into the kitchenette.

Crowley grabbed the countertop and stood there seething until a sharp smell told her she was melting the ancient Bakelite and she forced herself to relax. She stared for a moment at the melted handprints, and then left them for now.

The kitchenette wasn't really far enough away to keep her from hearing. She should have gone the other way, somewhere she had room to pace or flop down and mess about on her mobile or something. But she wasn't about to leave him more than a few strides away with an angel in the shop. If she distracted herself she could ignore it down to a low rumble.

Problem was, there weren't many distractions in here.

Well, unless she wanted to bake something. Which she didn't, really. Besides, the mood she was in anything she tried to bake might just end up cursed and there was no way she was going to feed possibly-cursed cookies to her angel and there was no way Aziraphale would let her feed possibly-cursed cookies to the neighbors and just... just...

Just _fuck._

Maybe there was something else she could do, without having to go back past that conversation. She looked around carefully.

Nope. Not a thing.

There was a familiar yelp from the other room. "I _what?!"_ Aziraphale said.

He sounded distressed, but not in-danger kind of distressed. He sounded the exact shade of distressed that she would have expected upon being told that while unconscious he had discorporated one of his co-workers and/or nearly taken out Soho a couple of times.

He sounded, in fact, exactly as distressed as she had expected him to be. Which is why she had been putting off this conversation. She leaned over and thumped her head against the counter, rhythmically, once-twice-thrice before straightening up. 

Her eye fell on the space under the counter, and her box--after the end of the world, when they had finally found themselves able to openly spend time together, Aziraphale had made a nest with a soft blanket there, for when Crowley wanted to be a snake.

She didn't even think, really. As a snake, she would still be able to know if he needed her. She'd be able to tell just by tasting the air, and he was still attached no matter her shape... but she wouldn't be trying so hard to both listen to and ignore their conversation.

Crowley dove into scales and tucked her head under her coils, only her tongue flicking out to scent the air for any sign of her angel's distress.

***

"Dearest?" The voice was close, and familiar, and accompanied by blunt fingers running down her scales. She flicked out her tongue and poked her head out from under her coils.

"Elluviel has gone home," Aziraphale said. "She was most helpful. She also wished me indicate to you that she no longer doubts how demonic you are after you abandoned her to the hard job."

Crowley yawned, ostentatiously stretching her jaw and showing her fangs.

"You should have told me, love. I needed to know."

Those fingers were still running down her scales. The next time he came up near her head, she bumped her snout into his arm.

"I know. I know it was hard and you're quite right, I didn't really want to know. But I needed to. I... I might have hurt people, if you weren't there. If you weren't very, very brave and very, very clever."

She ducked her head, then reared up and darted toward his shoulder. 

"I have more to say to you, you know," her angel said, but he extended his arm and let her slither up it. "And Elluviel had some news. And you're not getting any of it until you're people-shaped."

She was close enough now that she could flick her tongue out at his ear so she did, tickle/smell/tasting along the shell of it. He giggled softly and lifted the rest of her out of her box so she could twine across his shoulders and wrap around his soft waist.

Just a little longer, she thought, giving him a gentle squeeze. He laughed again, almost surprised. "Oh, very well. I find I'm still quite tired, my dear. Fancy a nap before dinner?"

She twisted round and flicked her tongue out at his other ear, then laid her head down on his shoulder with a contented hiss and let him carry her, for once in this whole thing, up to bed.

***


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You did something stupid and suicidal for me... so you wouldn't have to tell me I'd hurt people?"
> 
> "Well when you put it that way it sounds daft."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter one, in the home stretch now. (this went longer than I'd planned but Crowley REALLY didn't want to have this conversation, you can probably tell) :) Have another bonus one. Trying to space them out is boring.

"Crowley? Dear?"

"Hmm?" Crowley stretched, awakened as her human--hmm. Make that _his_ human self. He hummed a moment, considering, and then shrugged. "Angel?"

"I tried to move but you're a bit, um... attached."

He pried one eye open. Sure enough, he was wrapped around Aziraphale and okay, it was probably hard for his angel to actually move. On the other hand, it was arguably Aziraphale's fault for being soft and cuddly and projecting that lovely angelic warmth.

"Where did you think you were going?"

"Dinner, Crowley. We were going to have dinner."

"How do you feel?"

Aziraphale harrumphed. "I feel hungry, Crowley," he said grumpily. 

Crowley tightened around him, squeezing with arms and the thrown-over leg instead of the coils he'd gone to sleep in. 

"And I feel better," the angel said, his voice going high and gooey. "You're all warm and sweet and so _giving,_ love, I could just eat your widdle nose all up--"

"Eugh, fine, okay, just stop," Crowley said, relenting and unwinding himself in the face of this syrupy-sweetness. "I should never have let you know my secret weakness, fiend." Hmm, he was still entangled--he pulled back on his celestial self, too, which had wound round his angel in his sleep. Again.

Aziraphale shivered as Crowley's energy withdrew, breath puffing out of him. "Still not used to that. It feels... it feels good, when you're protecting me, do you know that?"

Crowley buried his face in his pillow--this wasn't the same as baby-talk praise, so he made an effort to be present, but still. "Not doing the Bastille hair again, angel. Those little curls are a beast."

"I'm serious, dearest. You take excellent care of me. I'll have to return the favor, when I'm all recovered."

That was.... Hmm. That was intriguingly vague, actually. He pulled his head out of the pillow.

Aziraphale was gazing at him semi-adoringly. "Oh, good, you're up. I'm quite well rested. I feel sure I could handle dinner out, if you'd be so kind as to drive." The angel--his angel, now and always--reached out and brushed down his cheek. "You changed again."

"Yep," Crowley said, for lack of anything better, and leaned into those fingers.

"You kept the hair, though." He smiled, soft and radiant. "I do like the hair. I shall pretend you kept it just for me."

"Prolly did, angel. We were, um, a bit entwined, like. When I de-snaked into--" he waved vaguely at his body.

"Oh! You don't think--you didn't change for _me,_ did you? Oh, my dear--"

"Nah. Just force of habit, for my money."

"Oh. Well, jolly good." Aziraphale ran a hand into his hair. "I do like the curls, though. Always have."

Crowley face-planted the pillows and let his head be rubbed.

"I would still like dinner, though," Aziraphale mused after a few minutes.

"Nnnngh," Crowley said. 

"And also you're still not getting out of this that easily." Strong fingers dug into his scalp, ran down his hair.

"...Fuck," Crowley said. 

He heaved a deep breath and pushed over onto his side, whining a bit when this lost him contact. "All right, all _right,_ angel. Where do you want to go for my interrogation?"

Aziraphale's eyes lit and he sat back. "I was thinking of sushi."

"We could get sushi in."

"I was thinking of sushi and _getting out of my shop,"_ Aziraphale said. "I have been stuck in here for days."

"Your wish, my command, blah blah," Crowley grumbled. He shot a mock glare when Aziraphale chuckled, but since they both knew the grousing had been partly for the angel's benefit it was only a mock glare after all.

*** 

"So," Aziraphale said, after they'd settled and ordered. "Uriel."

"Nnngh," Crowley said. He tossed back his sake, reached for the tokkuri.

Aziraphale's hand came down on his--gently, but firmly. "Crowley. Please. I know it hurts you and I know it isn't fun. But I need to know. It hurts to not know. _Please."_

He never could resist that. From the wall of Eden, he probably wouldn't have been able to resist that, and it had only gotten less likely over time. "Salt," he said, not quite looking Aziraphale in the face. "Along with another angel, one I didn't recognize."

"Salt?" The angel's voice was not disbelieving, but somewhat quizzical--dammit he _knew_ he'd told Elluviel this, why hadn't she said?

Well, he'd only mentioned it to her offhand. It probably didn't make as big an impression as actually having to bin the remains.

"You were... feeling threatened. Uriel broke in and the wards blew all to pieces and you reacted. I grabbed it, tried to keep it contained to the bookshop, but... not fast enough for Uriel." He pulled his hand out of Aziraphale's and refilled his sake after all. "Salt." The archangel's blank crystalline eyes were rearing up in his vision and he couldn't think of anything else to drown it out, not with Aziraphale's clear blue-green gaze so close and trained on him. _Don't think about how it could have gone wrong, don't think about it--_

"Crowley, not to say I don't believe you, but... how? How did you shift that much power? How did I not burn you out?" 

"I don't... I don't know, really. I didn't think about it, or I'd have chickened out, and this--" he tapped at his chest--"was already there and I felt the buildup and I just... grabbed it." He took some of his sake, a reasonable sip this time instead of knocking the whole thing back. "I didn't want to have to explain to you if something happened to your people."

"You did something stupid and suicidal for me... so you wouldn't have to tell me I'd hurt people?"

"Well when you put it that way it sounds daft." Ah, hells, his hand was shaking. He put the sake cup down and let his hands fall to his lap. "The next two times angels came prowling around they didn't do more than prod the wards, and I kept it away from people. Then French Girl came over, and you were fine with her outside the wards until--" He bit off, hands clenching into fists in his lap.

"Until...?" Aziraphale offered after a moment, so gently.

"She said--" Oh, he'd almost never been so glad for his sunglasses; maybe he could do this if nobody could see his eyes, if he could just close them and never have to look again. He steeled himself, fists clenching tighter. "She said she thought... they tried to make you Fall. They tried to make you _Fall."_

"And that made me react?"

Oh, blast him for being perceptive, for knowing him inside and out after all this time. "I think... I made you react. I was so angry, just furious. It felt like a threat, even though she didn't do anything but try to help, and... you tried to protect me." He laughed, weakly. Unconvincingly. "With extreme prejudice."

"Oh, _Crowley."_ Aziraphale reached under the table and found his hands--folded them in sunny warmth, rubbed circles into them and convinced them to unclench, and then, with a tiny nudge, healed the crescent marks of his nails.

"Don't exhaust yourself again," Crowley said sharply, but he turned his hands to clasp onto the angel's.

"So much less damage than earlier, love. I'm quite all right. Although our order could come at any moment and I would welcome it. I am distinctly peckish."

"About earlier...."

"Yes, I was getting there. We were talking, and then... you yanked on me, and you were bleeding--" Aziraphale sighed. "I feel as though I missed something there, too."

"There was an angel at the door, is what you missed. An angel at the door, knocking on the wards."

Aziraphale's mouth fell open in a soundless 'o'. "And I... reacted?"

"It's like you weren't there anymore, just for a minute; like you reacted when you were out and so hurt. I wasn't sure tugging would knock you out of it, but--" he swallowed. "I was scared you wouldn't come back."

"You reacted admirably. I am sorry about your hands, though. I'd like a closer look, later." Staff approached with a tray, a young woman unloading several scrumptious-looking sushi rolls for Aziraphale and a steaming broth with noodles for Crowley. Aziraphale waited till she was gone and leaned forward. "And Crowley? Dearest, I will always come back to you."

"I know," Crowley said. "You came back from Heaven's revenge. Twice." _But you're not invincible, and overpowered is overpowered..._

"You simply can't get rid of me that easily." Aziraphale picked up his chopsticks with evident relish. "Would you like a bite?"

"Thanks, I've got mine." Crowley poked his noodles with his spoon.

Aziraphale chewed carefully, clearly enjoying both the sushi and the being out of the bookshop. "Did Uriel come back? After that?"

"Don't know. Never saw any of the others, just felt when they hit the wards and then I was a little busy. I thought it might take her a while to get a new corporation, but, you know. Archangel. They probably get to go to the head of the queue."

"The noodles will be better if you eat them, dear, rather than just swirling them around."

He did not, in fact, stop swirling his noodles around. "I like rats," he said quietly.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You asked me how I handled that much power." Crowley stopped staring into his noodles and looked up at his angel. "I redirected it. Think I took out most of the rats in Soho." He shrugged, just a little helpless half-hitch of his shoulder. "I like rats."

"... But it was rats or people," Aziraphale said slowly.

Crowley nodded. "Salt," he said again.

"Oh. Oh, my boy. Oh, and _blast_ Sandalphon for planting that idea of wrath in my head."

They ate for a moment in silence. Well, Aziraphale ate, anyway. That was what mattered. 

"French Girl really was very helpful," he said after a moment. "That last one, when you reacted to me being upset. I was out of rats." He picked up his chopsticks and pulled some noodles out of his bowl, stared at them, and dropped them back into the broth. "She kept watch, so I could dump some energy. Because I couldn't--"

"Yes?"

"I wouldn't leave you alone. But I couldn't hold it all, it was too much." He stirred his noodles again, pointlessly. "I needed to ground some of it, but I was too close to the shop, too close to you."

"She did say you looked... very strange. Better later, but, but strange." Aziraphale laughed, lightly, deliberately, and then reached out to cover his hand. "Then again, she said the same thing about me, so I suppose we're a proper pair after all."

A proper pair, huh? He soaked up warmth from his angel's hand until Aziraphale pulled away to have another piece of sushi. 

"I still want to have a look at you once we get home," the angel said. "But right now you really should eat up, love."

The noodles were perfectly competent, chewy and loose with broth. He hadn't been hungry, he _knew_ he hadn't been hungry. Why was he hungry now?

No matter. He slurped up his noodles with appreciation, if not as much care as Aziraphale was giving to the sushi roll. It was worth a few minutes of his time.

"You didn't sound surprised," he said, after a few minutes.

"I'm sure I have been," Aziraphale said. "Which bit was supposed to surprise me?"

"When I told you what French Girl said." He looked up, meeting the angel's gaze through his glasses. "You didn't sound surprised, when I said she thought they wanted to...."

"Ah. To make me Fall?" Aziraphale said. Crowley nodded. "Yes, she did mention something of the sort over tea."

"Well?"

"And I still was not terribly surprised," he said. "My dear, for all that you seem determined to leave me without any information, I do have eyes. Quite a few of them. I've seen the wounds. I feel them. And--" Aziraphale raised his voice to cover Crowley's incoming objections--"I do have some idea of what went on."

"Then how can you be so calm?"

"My dear, I'm livid. But it's out of my hands. And, I am given to believe, into Someone else's." Blue eyes flicked toward the ceiling. "But no, I'm not surprised. The cuts... I don't know how much you remember, of the War? I definitely try not to think about it."

"The first time you uncurled enough for me to see how you were injured... brought a lot back," Crowley admitted. Flashbacks optional--he'd never been a fighter, hadn't seen the worst of it, but even the not-the-worst had been the entirely bad enough, thanks.

"I think... it's a little hard to see on oneself, of course. But I think the cuts are placed right about where someone might expect to be able to excise an angel's Grace, if someone hadn't been paying any attention to how we've all changed since the War. If someone thought that Falling from Her Grace was even possible without Her intention."

Crowley shoved that last into the back of his mind to mull over later. "If someone was a bureaucratic purple-eyed prat overdue for an arse-kicking, maybe?"

Aziraphale used his last little rice roll to soak up the last of his soy sauce and ate it carefully, then patted his lips with his napkin. "Delicious," he said. "Are you ready? I think I should be happy to be home soon, after all."

Back at the shop, Aziraphale retrieved one of the leftover tarts from his tea and settled onto the sofa with a contented sigh. "Nobody has seen Gabriel for some weeks," he said, as if their conversation hadn't paused for coats, the bill, a small chat with the itamae, a ride home in the Bentley, or his rummaging through the pastries. "Nor Sandalphon, apparently."

Crowley slouched back against the pillar, watching his nesting angel. "Still? French Girl said, but it's been ages since then."

"Elluviel," Aziraphale emphasized the name, "says that she looked him up. And that all anyone's records show about either of them is 'Out for training'. And that nobody actually knows who put that note into the records. And that Uriel is listed as 'on probation' and nobody can figure out what that means, either, especially Uriel."

"Talented gossip, that girl."

"Oh, you have no idea. We shall have to have her round for a proper chat one of these days. Possibly when no-one is in a snit and not telling me anything."

"Oi, what was I supposed to say? 'Welcome back, angel, I made sure you didn't take out Soho, have a scone'?"

"Well I am awfully glad you didn't." Aziraphale took a bite of his tart and closed his eyes, letting it melt on his tongue with a happy little wiggle. "Just lovely."

"Didn't say it that way?"

"Don't be obtuse, darling, it doesn't suit you. Of course I mean I'm glad you didn't let me hurt people; I'd have been distraught." The angel smiled. "And I lied. Being obtuse does suit you, I'm afraid. Or possibly I'm just utterly besotted with you."

"Maybe we're a proper pair after all, then." He stood up straight just long enough to sway over to the couch and flop down on it, landing with his head in Aziraphale's lap. "It's not proper demonic, but I'm also besotted. Except nobody says besotted anymore except you."

Aziraphale's hand crept down to run through his hair. "Perhaps it's simply that nobody else understands being besotted quite so well. You and I do have more practice at it than any humans are going to get."

"You know, I think the best thing about the world not ending was having the chance to stop pretending I didn't care?" Crowley pulled off his sunglasses and tossed them blindly in the direction of the side table, then closed his eyes and stretched like a cat into the hair-petting. "It might even be better than the world not ending, and you know how much I like the world."

"I do know how much you like the world. And I know how much you love me," Aziraphale said with a smile. "You did something stupid, to save my world, because you love me." He popped the last bite of tart into his mouth with a little delighted moan that shot straight to Crowley's spine. 

"So, uh... how you feeling, Angel?" 

"Hmm, tired still--I never realized how much interplay there is with our corporations! And I'm not entirely sure I'm ready to think about what all of it really means." Both hands freed of the tart, Aziraphale tugged gently at Crowley's hair and pulled it up, out from under his head and spread across the angel's strong thighs to be finger-combed. "But I do feel I'm doing much better. We had a lovely dinner out and I'm not nearly so tired as I expected."

"Only we haven't... we haven't gotten a chance to look through Mrs. Parcival's gift basket yet."

"Oh, that's right, the dear! We should take a look. And then perhaps have her over for tea again. Send her a nice card." He paused. "It wasn't buzzing when she brought it by, was it? It quite wore down the batteries last time before we even got it opened."

"Nope, nothing buzzing this time." Crowley grinned. "I haven't looked through it much, but there was nothing buzzing."

"She's so very enthusiastic. We should do something nice for her. And her soup was lovely."

"We could poke through your vintage erotica--have prints made of some of the old woodcuts," Crowley suggested, grinning wickedly. "Get them nicely framed. She could put them up in the shop!"

"Oh! Do you know, I think she'd quite like that!"

***


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I've known you for the whole of the world. Aziraphale: Principality, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, occasional hedonist and the Angel of Soho." He smiled. "I know what you need to keep going." He stretched out next to the angel, reached out one hand and laid it down--slender fingers on the soft, slightly overstuffed chest, pressing in just enough to feel the beating of a too-human heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are, y'all! Thank you for taking this ride with me. (heck, I made it four days, that's some kind of a record for me.) Last chapter is a little longer, again, but, well, I know you'll be heartbroken. :)

Eventually, the sight of Aziraphale actually yawning drove Crowley to chivvy them both off of the couch and upstairs, on the theory that his angel would rest much better if his angel could rest horizontally.

"There was one more thing Elluviel said that made me want to talk to you," Aziraphale mused as they snuggled down under the duvet.

Crowley groaned, burying his face in his pillow for a moment. "Yes, what?" he said when he surfaced.

"You said she was helpful," said Aziraphale. "She said... she wanted to know how her advice had gone."

"Yes?"

"I was wondering... What advice? You only said she kept watch."

"Oh." He propped himself up on one elbow. "I didn't know how to heal you. I didn't even know who to ask--the bastards from Heaven did this to you in the first place, and even if they hadn't, you were having such a strong reaction to the presence of angels. Nobody from Hell would have helped, either."

"So what did she do that was helpful?"

"Reminded me that, that the lessons you gave me on healing humans? Maybe we weren't so different."

"And that... helped?" Aziraphale did not look as though that helped him.

"The body wants to heal, you said. We just have to give it what it needs." He shrugged again. "I thought about what you would need."

"And what did I need?" The angel's expression had gone somewhat perplexed, and he went on, "I don't know that I've ever tried to heal the actual celestial self of someone. Corporations are easy, but... that kind of wound?"

And suddenly, for no reason he could fathom, Crowley found that his tongue just was not cooperating. How could he not _know?_ How could the angel not have any clue, when he'd even been around for some of it? He let his mouth work soundlessly for a moment, then gave up. "I could show you. If you want."

"Please, if you'd be so kind."

"Lie back."

Aziraphale settled back on the bed, cushioned in pillows and so, so _alive,_ so different to how he'd been days before that it made Crowley's chest ache all over again.

"I've known you for the whole of the world. Aziraphale: Principality, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, occasional hedonist and the Angel of Soho." He smiled. "I know what you need to keep going." He stretched out next to the angel, reached out one hand and laid it down--slender fingers on the soft, slightly overstuffed chest, pressing in just enough to feel the beating of a too-human heart.

And he shifted. Anchored in his body but twisted sideways, he took a good look at the angel's celestial self; the first real look he'd taken in several days. There were scars--he'd known there would be scars, nothing that deep could heal without a sign--but the distressing flare of active angelic bleed-out was faded. Aziraphale was congruent with his corporation, still healing but mostly whole.

Crowley stretched out, like he'd done then, like he'd been doing since. He wrapped himself around and pressed himself in and down like a net, like a blanket.

With the sliver of himself still anchored in the material he felt Aziraphale stiffen, then relax. "Oh," Aziraphale said, and it reverberated through him. "What--what are you d **oing?**

 **I said I would show you.** He didn't miss the sudden brightening as Aziraphale also moved out of the material, all that frightening power and attention _here,_ cutting into him in a way that... didn't hurt at all, actually. Huh.

 **It hurt last time,** Crowley said.

 **My dear boy,** Aziraphale said, **I feel quite cozily tucked in. But this shouldn't have been enough to actually fix anything.**

 **This is just the start,** Crowley said. **But it hurt last time.**

 **I'm so sorry. I was angry last time, love. I don't think I quite knew you.** The angel was holding himself carefully, deliberately not struggling or moving too much against Crowley. **What else did you do, then? If this was the start?**

 **This.** It had gotten easier with practice, this knocking down of the walls of him, the outpouring of himself into his angel. He slid into it with barely a hitch, happy to demolish the barriers and hand Aziraphale everything, _everything._

 **Oh,** Aziraphale said again, as Crowley made a gift of himself, then **_Ohh!_** again, as angelic essence took the torrent and pulled it inside, slathered it into the weak point of those scars.

Even his love was little demonic, Crowley realized--attuned to the differences now, he could see his darker energy move through Aziraphale's brightness.

He pressed against those scars, tracing his power as it filled in a little more, reinforced and strengthened. **Like this.**

**Crowley, that's... that's _more--_**

He was so entranced in watching freely--letting his angel see him, what he'd been doing--that he missed the build-up... 

Right up until Aziraphale's eyes flew open in rays of heavenly light.

 _All_ of Aziraphale's eyes.

Light stabbed through him and he writhed, all his outpouring stuttering and faltering in the face of being _seen,_ oh G--, S--, no, definitely oh _God,_ he hadn't felt this seen since the last time he'd been in Her presence--

**Crowley.**

He'd got complacent, dammit; he'd forgotten how Aziraphale's true form usually outshone his poor darkened senses. He tried to turn away, but it was _within_ him, there was nowhere to turn--here the brilliant strength and steadiness that had once made humans see an ox's head, there the keenness and farsightedness that had made them think of eagles, the courage and ferocity that they wrote down as the head of a lion--

The human descriptions were frightfully inadequate to the being of incandescent light and love he was wrapped around.

 **CROWLEY.** The voice shook him, shattered him.

**I can't--**

**Be Not Afraid.**

Warmth wrapped around the pieces of him, pressing through him at points to gather him up. He let it, helpless to do anything but curl into himself, try to pull the bits of himself back together as they turned inside-out. 

**For I am with thee,** Aziraphale went on, wrapped around him now in return, shining everywhere. 

**\--too much, it's too much--**

The brilliance dimmed somewhat. **I have you, dearest.**

**don't.**

**It's all right.**

He was still curled in on himself, trying to escape, to gather all the pieces of him. **don't look at me, don't see me--**

**Crowley. I have you. Look at me, my love.**

He tried, but it was still so bright, shining through him; he felt full of cold and shadow in the face of it. **How can you stand me?**

Joyous laughter rang out. **How could I not? You smiled for me, when I could not smile. You found hope for me, when I thought all was lost--and worse, when I believed it should be. You held me, when my faith was crumbling, so that I might not pitch down after it.** The light touched him again, a solid thing stroking through the dark of him, and he turned into it. **You found me broken, and you filled me with love to heal me.**

The touch was calming. He uncurled, little by little, fighting out of his panic. The brightness had abated. He could look without undue distress; Aziraphale wrapped him loosely, cradling him. **I couldn't let you down.**

 **You didn't, love. You saved me. You knew what I needed.** Light flared as he laughed again, but it hit Crowley as a caress, not a knife. **But perhaps we ought to power down a bit when I'm not actually knocking on Azrael's door. You are so very generous, my Crowley. I wasn't prepared for this much power.**

**How come I can look at you? Didn't used to be able to look at you.**

**Elluviel said you looked strange. I didn't really see it, but... I think I know what she meant.** Aziraphale stroked through him, into him again, light flaring and illuminating him. **We've traded power before--been close in our corporations, even switched. I think this is... immunity?** The angel moved, scintillating, shifting. **I can see the you in me. I can see the me in you. I'm not entirely sure we're two separate beings, anymore. Especially given this--** a touch, on that connection between them; a slow stroke that rang into Crowley's self like a singing wine glass.

 **You don't hurt, now,** Crowley said. He held the tether between them, carefully, not even sure whether he wanted rid of it or not at this point.

 **Oh, my dear, I'm quite energized. I should be giving some of this back.**

A whisper of power pulsed down the tether toward him. He tensed, ready for the bite of it, and was entirely unprepared when it didn't hurt at all but instead bloomed in his core like a flower, sending out petals and runners and, and this metaphor had gotten away from him but he didn't care. Warmth and light spread through him and eased open his demonic soul. **Angel...**

**You can't go giving all of yourself away, love. I should be very put out if there were none of you left.**

**It would be okay, if it was for you.**

**Oh, tosh. For me, you may keep yourself together and strong, please. Let me see your hands,** Aziraphale said.

He didn't have them here, he wanted to say, but as he instinctively opened himself for Aziraphale's attention he could see the marks where angelic power had cut into him as he wrestled it to compliance. They lay across the parts of himself that had sculpted nebulae and shaped stars, so long ago.

 **Oh,** said the angel. **Oh yes, I see. I'm so sorry, love.** The angel brushed along him, against and through those scars, and they faded--never quite gone, but eased.

Crowley rippled--a shiver, an offhand shrug. **You didn't mean to.**

**Oh, but you should never have been in that position! I, I should have--**

**Done is done, angel. Would have been oh, so much worse, if I had lost you.**

Apparently lost for words at last, Aziraphale folded around him, and he let himself be held.

 **We should probably go back.** Aziraphale said after a while, a note of regret in his voice. He showed no other particular inclination toward movement.

Crowley gently touched along the tether. **What about this?**

 **I've been taking a look at it, love, but... I'm just not entirely certain of what I did. Or, indeed, how exactly to undo it.** The angel fluttered, his light shifting. **I suppose I could, we could try to pull apart by force. If you would want that?**

**You don't sound confident.**

**I'm not. I don't know what it would do to you. Or to me. But if it distresses you...**

He was still stroking along it. **Not... Not like that, it doesn't. I'm nearly used to it, now.**

**Then it might be best to leave it for the moment--I'm so much better, but as you have been at some pains to point out, still healing. And you... I think you have depleted yourself quite unconscionably on my behalf, my dearest demon.**

**Got you back,** he muttered, but he couldn't deny he was weary. **About time for a nap, then?** Crowley stepped back to the material world, feeling oddly both very, very small and far too vast for his corporation.

 **Oh it's quite late, I think. We** can just call it sleep." Aziraphale opened his eyes. Even here the blue was awash in a familiar banked glow, and Crowley flinched automatically before realizing that this, too, did not hurt.

Aziraphale laughed again, gently. "It's your power in the first place," he said, and turned on his side, propped up on one arm to face him. "You've given me quite a lot of it. Perhaps at some point we were very different, but I think not so much anymore."

"You haven't Fallen, though. You haven't?" Crowley looked up from where his head lay on the pillow, too tired to contemplate moving just yet. _I haven't corrupted you, pushed you too far?_

"Not a step. I told you. Gabriel... I don't think he's been paying attention. You can't just make someone Fall." Aziraphale reached out with care and caressed the side of his face, down his neck to the ripped-out collar of the old t-shirt he slept in. "And love is not a sin. I do love you so, my Crowley." 

He did. Crowley knew he did, it wasn't even a surprise--they'd talked about this when the world didn't end and he knew the angel loved him, which is why he was so annoyed that he was _crying_ for some reason, _why was he crying--_

"Crowley, what--?" And then he was being gathered into angel arms, soft and strong and sunshine-warm and he just _couldn't stop--_

He buried his face in Aziraphale's soft beloved chest, slipped an arm around a well-padded middle and held on tight. It didn't ought to have hurt this much, to get to stop being strong. He was past finding words for it; words would come or they wouldn't, but just for now, he got to burrow in and just _stop_ for a moment.

The angel's body began to vibrate against his nose, a fine tenor rumble singing an old, old song--a human one, from... Mesopotamia? He was almost certain it was Mesopotamia, and obscurely grateful for the humanity of it. Whatever this, this _immunity_ was, he really wasn't sure he was ready to test it against Heavenly song. A hand accompanied it, stroking through his hair in time.

His crying trailed off, finally, leaving him feeling wrung-out and entirely unwilling to move, nuzzled into the warmth of Aziraphale's body.

"Long time since I heard you sing," he muttered, the words half lost, muffled in flesh.

"You sang to me," Aziraphale said. "Seems right to return the favor."

Crowley winced, and shifted just enough that he could speak clearly without a mouthful of vintage shirt-fabric. "You weren't supposed to remember that."

"I could hardly forget, you know."

"You were unconscious."

Light laughter shook Aziraphale's body. "You sang to me just now. Or did you not notice?"

"I--" His mouth worked for a moment, running ahead of him as always but with nowhere to go. He hadn't noticed, actually. He'd been concentrating on Aziraphale, and how much better he seemed to be, and hadn't even thought about that aspect of how he'd helped the angel heal. "Grrrng," he grumbled, delving back into soft belly. "Still. 's not the same."

"I fail to see how it's any different. I sing to you, because I love you."

"Appreciate you not going full heavenly choir on me, though."

"It didn't seem the proper time."

"I do very much enjoy not having my brain liquify and run out my ears, yes," Crowley said.

"You're being dramatic, dear."

He cracked one eye open. Aziraphale was watching him with crinkles of amusement around his eyes but worry in his brow. "'m allowed to be dramatic. Demon," Crowley said, waving a hand about in the air until he realized that doing so meant he had to let go of the squishy softness around him.

"Crowley... I'd like--hmm. Would you to talk to me about that, if you can?" Aziraphale said, and now his voice had the we-need-to-talk, navigate-the-waters-and-get-you-to-talk-about-your-feelings tone, which honestly was pretty rich coming from the Sacred Angel of Frantic Denial.

No. He stopped himself. That wasn't fair. "I know we agreed that things from before the end of the world stayed before the end of the world but can I be just a little annoyed at you for suddenly being angel therapist?"

"I certainly don't want to make you uncomfortable," Aziraphale began.

"Aaugh. So no, then." His right arm was still trapped under their bodies, so he released his grip and curled his left protectively over his head.

"But that was... I've said something that bothers you, I think." 

"I'm tired, angel. I am. I am so tired, I just--can we not? Please, I've just gotten you back."

"And I'm fairly certain it wasn't just because I said I love you, because now that I'm allowed I say that rather a lot," Aziraphale went on, relentless.

"You're not _allowed,_ you just don't actually give a fuck anymore," Crowley objected. 

"A distinction without a difference, my love. And so... I think it must have been saying nobody could _make_ someone Fall...?" Aziraphale's voice was wavering, there at the end, and he just wanted to scream and just wanted him to stop and... 

Oh.

Oh, bollocks. Just, just shit shit _shit._

Because that was it, wasn't it? He buried his face back into Aziraphale's chest before he could say anything, before the angel could see his face. Except Aziraphale was good at seeing him, was still thrumming with power and could probably _literally_ see through him right now and in any case had known him better and longer than any other being anywhere. 

Strong, soft arms gathered him back in, tightened around him until they almost might have been the only things holding him together. "Oh, love." 

He could hear the endearment through his nose, pressed up against the barrel of the angel's chest, able to feel that so-human heartbeat. "I didn't mean to," he said, engulfed in warm flesh and clean shirt-linen.

"I know you didn't," Aziraphale said, and it was unfair because there's no way he should have been able to understand that, garbled as it was. 

Crowley pulled back slightly, just enough to say more clearly, "I didn't want to, either."

"I know that, too." Aziraphale shifted, allowing him more freedom of movement without letting go. "I know you didn't want to Fall, love. And when I said that, before... I wasn't referring to the Almighty, who makes Her choices and doesn't always ask us." He sighed, heavily, and stretched to drop a kiss into Crowley's hair. "I also know that you'd have been dreadfully unhappy as an angel still."

Crowley couldn't exactly deny it, but he certainly wasn't in the mood to confirm it, either. "Hell wasn't super great for making happiness."

"I've often been dreadfully unhappy as an angel, and I'm more temperamentally suited to it."

"Bugger." He buried his face back into warm angel flesh. "I hate it when you have a good point."

"I'm much happier now, though, as... as whatever we count as, these days. Free agents? Protectors of Earth? Keepers of the Balance?"

"Doers of sod-all, purveyors of fucks to give?"

"You're not going to distract me, Serpent." Another kiss dropped into his hair, and he tried not to whine for more. "Because I knew what Gabriel was doing, I think. I certainly knew once I got a good look after. And I knew he didn't understand, not properly... because of you."

Crowley waited, and when no more seemed to be forthcoming he reluctantly disengaged his face from Aziraphale's chest and looked up at him. "You're gonna have to explain that one, angel."

"You can't forcibly remove someone's Grace--and I'm certain that's what he was trying to do--because it doesn't work that way. Grace isn't a separate component of us, to be ripped out like a surgery. It's a part of us, through everything. It has to be surrendered."

"That's... that's just nuts. I never, _never--"_

"I know you never. That's how I knew. She took away Her Grace, but you never did surrender the core of you. You hid it and held it and locked it away, you protected it and walled it in until sometimes I think even you forgot it was there... but you never surrendered it. It's right here," Aziraphale said, and let go of him long enough to trail a hand down his body. 

Something moved through him and his breath caught in his chest. "Angel?" It was warm without being the slightest bit physical; it stroked into the core of him without bothering with the material world at all. The tenseness and the tiredness of him eased, under that touch. "Are you--?"

"You were very generous, earlier," Aziraphale said with a laugh full of gentle joy and overflowing love, light and kind and just the tiniest bit wicked. Of all the things Crowley loved about his angel, that laugh might just top the list. "I think I should give some of it back, don't you?"

He wanted to argue--no, he _started_ to argue, to protest that all of that, everything, was for Aziraphale. But if pouring himself into his angel had felt good, even as he hurt....

Well, having his angel pouring back into him was downright heavenly.

He arched his back, stretching into it as heat flooded through his body, sang along his nerves. "This doesn't... hmmmmm! ...feel like Grace."

"My darling demon," Aziraphale said with an actual twinkle in his eye, "I defy you to explain the difference between Grace and love." 

"Could only gi--ha! ...give you love." His brain fizzed. "You're cheating, right? You've got to be cheating."

"How did you think I saw the Grace you hold?" The angel--his perfect, flawed, bastard angel--moved his hand just so.

Crowley damn near levitated off the bed. "I am sure," he said tightly, "absolutely _certain_ that I wasn't doing... doing _this_ to you... all this time!"

"Did you want me to stop?" Aziraphale said, the very picture of innocence.

"Don't you dare!"

"Of course, my dear. If that's the way you feel." Crowley was half-gone on this already, but not so far that he couldn't hear the smug. "I think perhaps, well, it is love, isn't it? And I think perhaps it becomes what we need. I needed to heal, and to sleep. You needed me to heal, and to wake. You need--"

Crowley grabbed his angel's head and surged up against him for a bruising kiss. "You talk too much."

*** 

It takes concentration, to keep attention split between two different planes. Certainly Crowley hadn't bothered to try it in millennia, not until this recent crisis, and--while quite enjoying everything Aziraphale was doing!--he was also watching fragile energy levels deplete faster than he really liked. The angel's fatigue, plus some encouragement of his own toward not _quite_ so much metaphysics, please, saw them slip into the welcome, familiar slide of skin on skin, body on body, sharing themselves each to each.

Aziraphale mouthed kisses along the skin of his shoulder, curled behind him in the aftermath. "We should maybe try that again, sometime."

"Sure," Crowley said, happily drifting. He shifted, snuggled down into the joy of being the cuddlee. "When everyone's all topped up again."

"I've been thinking," Aziraphale said into his skin.

Aaand he was awake again. "Not this. Not now. No thinking. Sleep, angel."

"I don't think it would have worked, with anyone else, you know." Fingers came up and played in his hair, as though Aziraphale thought that would mollify him.

"I wouldn't have _tried_ with anyone else. I wouldn't have even cared about anyone else. Sleep, angel."

"Not just you healing me, dearest, although I daresay you're the only demon who would have tried. Any of it."

Dammit, the fingers in his hair were mollifying him. He let his eyes start to drift shut again.

"I'm not entirely sure we would be able to be this close at all, if we weren't already woven through each other." Aziraphale sighed, let his hand drift down Crowley's neck and settle flat over his humanish heart. "If you didn't still have that spark of grace." One more kiss to the back of the demon's neck. "Even if you refuse to call it anything but love."

"Aaugh," Crowley said. "Go to _sleep,_ angel." But he laid his hand over the hand on his chest, and held on tight.

***

 **I don't know,** Crowley said later, all his attention on the place their selves were joined. **I don't think it looked like this before.**

**Are you sure? I admit I wasn't paying the best of attention...**

**Of course you weren't, you were comatose. It's fine. I just... I don't--**

**I can't quite tell where you end and I begin,** Aziraphale said quietly. There were harmonics there that might have been fright, or worry, but almost sounded something like awe.

**Yeah. That.**

**Well,** Aziraphale said, suddenly businesslike. **I believe we have a couple of possibilities. And that this conversation requires scotch.**

**_Yes,_** Crowley said, and followed his angel back to the mundane.

Aziraphale shook himself just slightly as he settled into his body. "We can, um... try very _very_ hard to pull ourselves apart," he said, standing and heading for the cabinet where he kept the good whiskey.

Crowley watched after him. "And just... hope we each end up with our own bits?"

"The possibility of mixing is certainly present. But we're mixing now, dearest." The angel came back with a bottle of Mortlach and two tumblers. "So yes, that is our first option." 

As a Plan A went, Crowley thought that sounded highly dubious. "What's Plan B?" he said, gratefully accepting two fingers of whiskey.

"If we're not able to separate by other means, it's possible we could... hmm." Aziraphale shivered, not happily, and took a sip of his own. "If either of us could get our hands on our assigned weapons, we might be able to, erm... cut ourselves free."

Crowley stared at him for a moment. "Well, I'm going to call that 'Plan Suck.'"

"I'm not terribly pleased with the idea myself, my dear. But it is an option, should it come to that." Aziraphale fluttered his fingers in the air. "A last resort, as it were, but all options on the table."

"No," he said decisively. "Plan Suck is a bad plan. It's a terrible plan and we're not doing it."

"I do feel as though there ought to be a better option. However..." Aziraphale's voice trailed off. There was something there he didn't want to say. So naturally, being a demon of curiosity, Crowley wanted to hear it.

He took another sip, let it slide down his throat and savored the smokiness. Aziraphale still hadn't finished his thought. "However?" he prompted.

"I have looked very closely," Aziraphale admitted. "I'm sure at the beginning I was holding onto you quite tightly." He fluttered his hands again, almost sheepishly. "I'm not entirely certain that I--" another bit of whiskey-- "that I _want_ to let go," he finished.

"You don't _want_ to?"

"I... do? But also I don't." Aziraphale set down his glass, reached for Crowley, pulled back. "I find... I think I like this, this connection. And I think, maybe, that... so do you?"

"What makes you say that?" Crowley said, in lieu of admitting that he was ambivalent about the whole idea of separating. He'd had weeks to get used to the angel being joined to him, to having that closer connection--he used to be able to sense Aziraphale by his holy energy, slightly tarnished but so shining bright it made him ache. Now he could feel down into himself for the source of that love _within_ him, warm and comforting. 

He didn't exactly hate it, at least as long as he wasn't trying to control and direct it. He'd even gotten to quite like it, during this strange convalescence his angel was going through, just knowing he was there.

"My dear," Aziraphale said. "You are twined every bit as tightly into me as I am wrapped up in you. This--" he gestured to the space between them, and its invisible attachment-- "is not rejection. This is an _embrace._ A mutual clutching. I think we can't let go because we don't want to."

"...Because you're part of me," Crowley said, finding his way along the words. "The best part. Always have been." He considered for a moment, but this felt--this _was,_ he was sure, had been since Eden--inevitable, like they'd always been headed here. He laughed, ran a hand up into his hair. "Was gonna ask you anyway. All the stuff about joining into one flesh always sounded like a metaphor, before, but--"

"Anthony Crowley!" Aziraphale nearly dropped his tumbler. "Are you _proposing_ to me? Because if you're proposing to me you had better do it properly!"

"Did you want me to start by asking your Father for your hand?" Crowley said, teasing.

"Hmmph." The angel narrowed his eyes. "Quite. But I do expect a proper proposal at some point. The answer will be yes, of course." Aziraphale picked up his glass again, looked at the liquid level, and poured himself a bit more, with a quiet laugh. "Elluviel asked, you know. What we were. Now I think about it that way, the answer I should have given her is 'married'. In every sense, really, except having gone through the human rituals."

"I've been yours for centuries." Crowley smiled, feeling his own happiness magnified through the warmth in his chest, and held out his glass for a toast. "To human rituals, then," he said, and touched it to his angel's.

***

"Angel?"

Aziraphale had stepped over to pick up the post a couple minutes ago and had not returned. When Crowley put down his coffee to check on him, he found his angel still standing by the shop door, a tension in his posture that Crowley hadn't seen for quite a while.

"Aziraphale? What's wrong?" As he came around he could see an envelope and a letter crumpling in the angel's shaking grip. "What's that?"

Aziraphale took a deep breath and let it out, slowly settling himself. By the time he turned back to Crowley he was no longer trembling. "Gabriel," he said.

"What. The hell." Crowley reached for the letter. "That absolute wanker. What does he want?"

"Based on his letter, it would seem that he wants... forgiveness." Aziraphale voice was almost unreadable, but Crowley thought he heard the beginnings of a laugh.

"That's just, that's just bloody _cheek,_ that is." Aziraphale was no longer shaking, but that was all right because now Crowley was. "He tried to slice you open and cut out your soul, so he can fucking whistle for his forgiveness." 

"Now, dearest." There was definitely a smile in there now. "It does seem that he's landed himself in a bit of a bother."

"And what exactly counts as 'a bit of a bother' in this case, angel? I'll accept answers starting with boiling lava and escalating from there."

"According to this, he woke up in Oklahoma."

"That's... Okay, what?"

Aziraphale handed him the letter. He took one glance at the squiggly, looping hand and gave it straight back. "If I try to read that mess I'll have eyestrain. Sum it up for me so I know whether to book an arse-kicking flight to Oklahoma. You get discounts if someone really, really needs to die, right?"

"I don't feel my intervention is called for or necessary, love. Apparently Gabriel landed in a small town in Oklahoma, and has found himself quite unable to leave it. Until he 'learns his lesson,' whatever that entails."

"So he's just stuck there? Alone in the wilds of darkest America?"

Aziraphale looked at the letter again. "'I don't know how you deal with human things, they're awful. I'm ingesting gross matter and I like it but the things that happen to human bodies after are horrifying and they can't stop or their bodies degrade," he read off. "And they expect you to have money. For everything. I have found employment at a 'Wal-Mart'--"

Crowley's snickering overwhelmed his reading. "I take it back, no arse-kicking is better than Gabriel working at a Wal-Mart."

"Oh, but his poor co-workers," Aziraphale said with a quirk of his lips. "In any case he seems to think me forgiving him will fix this." 

"...And what do you think?" 

"Oh, I shouldn't think so. I didn't want to hear from him--just his handwriting brings back a great deal that I would rather let stay in the past--but I forgave him some time ago." He let out a little 'hmm' and dropped the letter into the bin by his desk. "I almost feel sorry for him."

"You... _what?"_ Crowley wasn't even sure which part was more unbelievable, the forgiveness or the feeling sorry for that over-groomed prat, but neither part was something he was inclined to participate in.

Aziraphale sighed. "It must be awful living like that, so angry and so certain and not a touch of actual love. I told you, I think I even understand what he was thinking."

"So you just... _forgive_ him?" No matter how he looked at them, those words didn't really make sense to Crowley. Then again, as he would readily admit, his own forgiveness was boundless when it came to precisely one fussy angel and nearly nonexistent for anyone else.

"Forgiveness doesn't mean I'm inclined to let him do it again, dear. It only means I've decided not to let my anger at him take up any more space in my thoughts." 

"Well _I_ don't forgive him. And if he's ever again in striking distance he's going to get to find out just how venomous I can be."

"Perfectly reasonable, of course. And I do so love that you're ready to commit violence for me." He 'hmm'ed again, happily. "'Out for Training,' Elluviel said. I suspect he's not getting out of it until he learns whatever lesson She thinks he needs to learn and he is, as usual, trying to find shortcuts. Again."

"I don't remember Her being a big fan of shortcuts."

"No, I shouldn't think so."

Crowley pinched the bridge of his nose. "So am I allowed to fly out and bite him? Please say yes."

"Oh, but I would miss you terribly if you did. I was thinking, rather, that we might send him a wedding invitation."

"You want him to come to our wedding?! No. Nope, putting down my foot on that one--"

"Of course not!" Aziraphale smiled widely and leaned in, resting his arms up on Crowley's shoulders in a loose embrace. "But I'm not above shoving my own good fortune into his nose a little." He rubbed his own nose against Crowley's, then leaned in for a kiss.

Crowley smiled and kissed back. "And you want him to be scandalized about the sex."

"And he's not terribly conversant in human rituals, but marriage is rather unequivocal. Yes, I rather relish the thought of him being scandalized about the sex."

"...we should definitely send him a wedding invitation. Maybe we should even include a little gift to him."

Aziraphale laughed and leaned back, lacing his fingers behind Crowley's head. "I'm almost certain Mrs. Parcival would help us pick out something... entertaining."

***

end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original idea for this was shorter, and darker, but still came back to 'when I made Aziraphale have to rescue Crowley, he had to do it by learning to be fast and changeable and adaptable, which is not his skill set... the equivalent there for Crowley to rescue Aziraphale would be to give him a situation where he had to endure, where he had to be solid and _present_ and couldn't just, well, slither his way around it.'
> 
> And so I did that thing. I didn't actually anticipate at that point how hard it was going to be on him**, and then he just didn't want to actually have the talk he needed to have AT ALL, not that I can blame him, and he definitely deserved some softness and healing of his own after that. 
> 
> Thanks again for riding with me here, and ...okay, I'm frankly amazed I lasted this long. The chapter-a-day thing was never going to happen all the way through... :) 
> 
> (also thanks are due to LigeiaSaintGermain for both the story title (from "Amazing Grace") and the working title for the last half of it, which was "Grace and Cranky". She holds no responsibility for the original working title, which was "Staggering Amounts of Bullshit")
> 
> **how hard this was on poor Crowley made me very glad the story shifted away from the shorter/darker version, although bits of that may surface elsewhere. For one, Elluviel (who I now love), was going to be much more party-line heavenly rather than the fairly soft Plot Convenience Angel she became.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, y'all--kudos always appreciated, comments are read and treasured in my poor withered heart even if I don't actually manage to reply to everyone.
> 
> This fandom gives me life, y'all. Thanks for being awesome.


End file.
